5 and 8 · The 5 and the mountain
The 5 Yellow and the 8 White: two earths, the 8’s steadiness holding the 5, property and weight, a sector to keep calm and simple.
Meaning
Gen’s mountain beside the square’s centre, two Earth stars, the one still and the other strong. With the 8 just past its time and the 5 dormant, the classics read stillness more than gain now, a sector kept calm and simple.
The 5 and the 8, two earths, the 8’s steadiness holding the 5: the classics read property and weight. In season, lasting gains from land; out of season, things that stand still, in a sector to keep calm and simple.
In practice
- In a home’s chart: a palace whose mountain star and water star are the 5 and the 8, 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 8 as water star: mountain star and water star share their phase, earth: what holds the people of the home and what flows in pull the same way.
- The 8 as mountain star, the 5 as water star: mountain star and water star share their phase, earth: what holds the people of the home and what flows in pull the same way.
- In Period 9 (2024–2043), neither star is in season, though the 8 has only just passed its time: read “out of season”, more gently for what the 8 speaks for.
Correspondences
- The stars: the 5 Yellow (Lian Zhen) and the 8 White (Zuo Fu)
- Their phase: Earth, the same for both
- Their trigrams and homes in the Lo Shu: the centre, with no trigram; Gen ☶, in the north-east
- 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 7, 5 and 9
- The 8 with the other stars: 1 and 8, 2 and 8, 3 and 8, 4 and 8, 6 and 8, 7 and 8, 8 and 8, 8 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.
- 8 White starThe eighth of the nine stars, Earth and the trigram Gen, the mountain, at home in the north-east: steadiness and lasting gains, waning in Period 9.
- 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.
- 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