3 and 7 · Two stars of dispute
In Chinese: 三七疊至三七叠至
The 3 Jade and the 7 Red: metal cutting wood, two stars adding up to ten, read with care for belongings and for words.
Meaning
Zhen and Dui, the east and the west, face each other across the compass, thunder and the lake; their numbers add up to ten, and the classical verse calls their meeting 三七疊至, the three and the seven arriving together. Both are dormant in Period 9, and the classics’ counsel is ordinary care, with locks, belongings and what is said.
The 7’s metal cuts the 3’s wood, the two adding up to ten: a classical verse warns that when the 3 and the 7 meet, things are taken. The classics read loss and dispute. In season, sharp business sense and quick wins; out of season, care with belongings and locks, and with what is said.
In practice
- In a home’s chart: a palace whose mountain star and water star are the 3 and the 7, 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 7 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 7 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 7 Red (Po Jun)
- Their phases: Wood and Metal
- Their trigrams and homes in the Lo Shu: Zhen ☳, in the east; Dui ☱, in the west
- Ten: the two add up to ten, as the numbers facing each other across the square’s centre do
- The 3 with the other stars: 1 and 3, 2 and 3, 3 and 3, 3 and 4, 3 and 5, 3 and 6, 3 and 8, 3 and 9
- The 7 with the other stars: 1 and 7, 2 and 7, 4 and 7, 5 and 7, 6 and 7, 7 and 7, 7 and 8, 7 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.
- 7 Red starThe seventh of the nine stars, Metal and the trigram Dui, the lake, at home in the west: speech, charm and pleasure, read with care out of season.
- 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