3 and 6 · Authority and ambition
The 3 Jade and the 6 White: metal checking wood, the father and the eldest son, ambition given shape by discipline.
Meaning
Qian and Zhen, heaven and thunder, the father and his heir: thunder under heaven is the hexagram Wu Wang, innocence, the unplanned act that goes well. Both stars are dormant in Period 9, so patience with rules is the counsel now.
The 6’s metal checks the 3’s wood: the father and the eldest son, authority and ambition. In season, drive given shape by discipline; out of season, clashes with those in charge, and impatience with rules.
In practice
- In a home’s chart: a palace whose mountain star and water star are the 3 and the 6, 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 3 as mountain star, the 6 as water star: the water star checks the mountain star, as metal checks wood: what comes in presses on the people of the home.
- The 6 as mountain star, the 3 as water star: the mountain star checks the water star, as metal checks wood: the people hold back what flows in, a restraint that can steady or slow.
- In Period 9 (2024–2043), neither star is in season: read “out of season”, whichever is the mountain star.
Correspondences
- The stars: the 3 Jade (Lu Cun) and the 6 White (Wu Qu)
- Their phases: Wood and Metal
- Their trigrams and homes in the Lo Shu: Zhen ☳, in the east; Qian ☰, in the north-west
- The 3 with the other stars: 1 and 3, 2 and 3, 3 and 3, 3 and 4, 3 and 5, 3 and 7, 3 and 8, 3 and 9
- The 6 with the other stars: 1 and 6, 2 and 6, 4 and 6, 5 and 6, 6 and 6, 6 and 7, 6 and 8, 6 and 9
Related
- 3 Jade starThe third of the nine stars, Wood and the trigram Zhen, thunder, at home in the east: drive and initiative, read with patience out of season.
- 6 White starThe sixth of the nine stars, Metal and the trigram Qian, heaven, the father, at home in the north-west: authority, leadership and support from above.
- 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.
- WoodThe phase of growth and beginnings, of spring and the east: what pushes upwards and outwards towards the light.
- MetalThe phase of gathering in and giving form, of autumn and the west: the harvest, the clear line, the edge that decides.
- 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