4 and 5 · Letters weighed down

Meaning

Xun’s wind beside the square’s centre: the scholar’s star next to the strongest one. Both are dormant in Period 9; the classics read the pairing as patient work on something large, and ask that the sector stay simple.

The 4’s wood against the 5’s earth: the classics read study and romance weighed down. In season, steady effort on a large work; out of season, plans that stall, and attachments that complicate things.

In practice

• In a home’s chart: a palace whose mountain star and water star are the 4 and the 5, 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 4 as mountain star, the 5 as water star: the mountain star checks the water star, as wood checks earth: the people hold back what flows in, a restraint that can steady or slow.
• The 5 as mountain star, the 4 as water star: the water star checks the mountain star, as wood checks earth: what comes in presses on the people of the home.
• In Period 9 (2024–2043), neither star is in season: read “out of season”, whichever is the mountain star.

Correspondences

• The stars: the 4 Green (Wen Qu) and the 5 Yellow (Lian Zhen)
• Their phases: Wood and Earth
• Their trigrams and homes in the Lo Shu: Xun ☴, in the south-east; the centre, with no trigram
• The 4 with the other stars: 1 and 4, 2 and 4, 3 and 4, 4 and 4, 4 and 6, 4 and 7, 4 and 8, 4 and 9
• The 5 with the other stars: 1 and 5, 2 and 5, 3 and 5, 5 and 5, 5 and 6, 5 and 7, 5 and 8, 5 and 9