2 and 8 · Two earths adding to ten
The 2 Black and the 8 White: two earths adding up to ten, the mother and the youngest son, land, property and savings.
Meaning
They face each other across the Lo Shu’s centre, the south-west and the north-east, the axis that joins Kun and Gen. In Period 9 the 2 is timely and the 8 just past, a balance of what grows and what is kept.
The 2 and the 8, two earths adding up to ten: the mother and the youngest son. The classics read land, property and savings. In season, gains from property and steady accumulation; out of season, things that stand still, and savings slow to grow.
In practice
- In a home’s chart: a palace whose mountain star and water star are the 2 and the 8, in either order, holds this pairing; the palace’s reading names it and gives the text above, then how the two phases meet and which face applies.
- The 2 as mountain star, the 8 as water star: mountain star and water star share their phase, earth: what holds the people of the home and what flows in pull the same way.
- The 8 as mountain star, the 2 as water star: mountain star and water star share their phase, earth: what holds the people of the home and what flows in pull the same way.
- In Period 9 (2024–2043), the 2 is in season and the 8 has just passed its time: read “in season” for what the 2 speaks for and “out of season”, more gently, for what the 8 speaks for, the people of the home when a star is the mountain’s, what comes in when it is the water’s.
Correspondences
- The stars: the 2 Black (Ju Men) and the 8 White (Zuo Fu)
- Their phase: Earth, the same for both
- Their trigrams and homes in the Lo Shu: Kun ☷, in the south-west; Gen ☶, in the north-east
- Ten: the two add up to ten, as the numbers facing each other across the square’s centre do
- The 2 with the other stars: 1 and 2, 2 and 2, 2 and 3, 2 and 4, 2 and 5, 2 and 6, 2 and 7, 2 and 9
- The 8 with the other stars: 1 and 8, 3 and 8, 4 and 8, 5 and 8, 6 and 8, 7 and 8, 8 and 8, 8 and 9
Related
- 2 Black starThe second of the nine stars, Earth and the trigram Kun, the mother, at home in the south-west: land, care and patience, timely in Period 9.
- 8 White starThe eighth of the nine stars, Earth and the trigram Gen, the mountain, at home in the north-east: steadiness and lasting gains, waning in Period 9.
- Pairs of starsThe 45 meetings of a mountain star and a water star in one palace of a Flying Star chart, each with the reading the classics give it, in season and out.
- EarthThe phase of the centre and of every turning point: the ground that steadies, nourishes and gathers the other four together.
- Flying Star chartA home’s chart in the Flying Stars: nine palaces, each with a mountain star, a water star and a period star, cast from the home’s period and facing.
Sources
- Zi Bai Jue (Verse of the Purple and White), Xuan Kong school
- Xuan Kong Mi Zhi (Secret Meaning of the Profound Void), Xuan Kong school
- Fei Xing Fu (Rhapsody of the Flying Stars), Xuan Kong school
- Shen Zhureng, Shen shi Xuankong xue, published after 1906