4 and 6 · Rules and creativity
The 4 Green and the 6 White: metal checking wood, two stars adding to ten, the father and the eldest daughter, rules and creativity.
Meaning
Xun and Qian face each other across the compass, the south-east and the north-west, the door of earth and the gate of heaven; wind under heaven is the hexagram Gou, coming to meet. Both stars are dormant in Period 9, so the classics ask for room for creative work.
The 6’s metal checks the 4’s wood, the two adding up to ten: the father and the eldest daughter. The classics read rules and creativity at odds. In season, writing and study that serve those in charge well; out of season, creative work held back by authority.
In practice
- In a home’s chart: a palace whose mountain star and water star are the 4 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 4 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 4 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 4 Green (Wen Qu) and the 6 White (Wu Qu)
- Their phases: Wood and Metal
- Their trigrams and homes in the Lo Shu: Xun ☴, in the south-east; Qian ☰, in the north-west
- Ten: the two add up to ten, as the numbers facing each other across the square’s centre do
- The 4 with the other stars: 1 and 4, 2 and 4, 3 and 4, 4 and 4, 4 and 5, 4 and 7, 4 and 8, 4 and 9
- The 6 with the other stars: 1 and 6, 2 and 6, 3 and 6, 5 and 6, 6 and 6, 6 and 7, 6 and 8, 6 and 9
Related
- 4 Green starThe fourth of the nine stars, Wood and the trigram Xun, the wind, at home in the south-east: letters, study and the arts.
- 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