7 and 8 · The young couple
In Chinese: 澤山咸泽山咸
The 7 Red and the 8 White: the lake over the mountain, the hexagram Xian, attraction, the youngest daughter and the youngest son.
Meaning
Xian, 澤山咸, opens the second part of the Book of Changes, and its commentary reads it as courtship: the mountain’s stillness below, the lake’s joy above, the young man deferring to the young woman. With the 8 just past its time and the 7 dormant, the classics ask that pleasures not cost more than they give.
The 8’s earth feeds the 7’s metal: the youngest son and the youngest daughter, the lake over the mountain, the hexagram Xian, “attraction”. The classics read romance, charm and wealth through speech. In season, attraction, good company and gains from talk; out of season, pleasures that cost more than they give.
In practice
- In a home’s chart: a palace whose mountain star and water star are the 7 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 7 as mountain star, the 8 as water star: the water star feeds the mountain star, as earth feeds metal: what comes in supports the people of the home.
- The 8 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.
- 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 7 Red (Po Jun) and the 8 White (Zuo Fu)
- Their phases: Metal and Earth
- Their trigrams and homes in the Lo Shu: Dui ☱, in the west; Gen ☶, in the north-east
- The 7 with the other stars: 1 and 7, 2 and 7, 3 and 7, 4 and 7, 5 and 7, 6 and 7, 7 and 7, 7 and 9
- The 8 with the other stars: 1 and 8, 2 and 8, 3 and 8, 4 and 8, 5 and 8, 6 and 8, 8 and 8, 8 and 9
Related
- 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.
- 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.
- MetalThe phase of gathering in and giving form, of autumn and the west: the harvest, the clear line, the edge that decides.
- 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