5 and 7 · Words with weight
The 5 Yellow and the 7 Red: earth feeding metal, speech given weight, persuasive words in season and words that carry too far out of it.
Meaning
The centre’s 5 beside Dui’s 7, the lake whose image in the Shuo Gua is the mouth: words with the strongest star behind them. Both are dormant in Period 9, so the classics ask that words be few and kind in this sector.
The 5’s earth feeds the 7’s metal: the classics read speech given weight. In season, persuasive words and profitable talk; out of season, gossip, and sharp words that carry further than meant.
In practice
- In a home’s chart: a palace whose mountain star and water star are the 5 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 5 as mountain star, the 7 as water star: the mountain star feeds the water star, as earth feeds metal: the people’s effort goes into what comes in.
- The 7 as mountain star, the 5 as water star: the water star feeds the mountain star, as earth feeds metal: what comes in supports 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 5 Yellow (Lian Zhen) and the 7 Red (Po Jun)
- Their phases: Earth and Metal
- Their trigrams and homes in the Lo Shu: the centre, with no trigram; Dui ☱, in the west
- The 5 with the other stars: 1 and 5, 2 and 5, 3 and 5, 4 and 5, 5 and 5, 5 and 6, 5 and 8, 5 and 9
- The 7 with the other stars: 1 and 7, 2 and 7, 3 and 7, 4 and 7, 6 and 7, 7 and 7, 7 and 8, 7 and 9
Related
- 5 Yellow starThe fifth of the nine stars, Earth and the Lo Shu’s own centre, with no trigram or direction: the strongest star, for which the classics ask quiet.
- 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.
- EarthThe phase of the centre and of every turning point: the ground that steadies, nourishes and gathers the other four together.
- 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