Zi mountain

Meaning

Zi, 子 zǐ, is the middle mountain of the north (N2): the fifteen degrees from 352.5° to 7.5°, centred on 0°, due north. It takes its name from Zi, the first of the twelve Earthly Branches, the Rat’s, and carries its phase, Water.

Zi is the north itself, 0° on every compass, the branch of the Rat, of midnight and of the winter solstice: the moment the year’s yang stirs again at the bottom of the cold. It is the middle of the north’s three Water mountains, between Ren and Gui. A home facing Zi looks due north and sits in Wu, due south; it is the reverse of the classical orientation of palaces and temples, which sat in Zi and faced Wu, but the Flying Stars read every facing by the same rules, and none is better in itself.

For the Flying Stars Zi is the north’s Heaven dragon and counts as yin, although the branch Zi is yang in BaZi: the luopan gives its mountains a polarity of their own, by the three dragons, for the stars’ flight. So Zi shares its main chart with Gui, its yin neighbour. Built in Period 9, a home facing either has both of the period’s stars at the front, with a 5 in the centre flying backward, the opposed chart; built in Period 8, both at the back. In every period but the fifth their stars meet in one palace, at the front and at the back by turns, and in Periods 3 and 7 they add a Combination of Ten.

In practice

• The facing: a home whose front faces between 352.5° and 7.5° faces Zi, and sits in Wu, S2: a Li house of the East group. The Home lens tints Zi on its dial and draws Wu dashed.
• Near its edges: within 3° of 352.5° or 7.5° many schools read a replacement chart, which Ulune shows beside the main one; within 1.5° the facing is on a void line: at 352.5° the line towards Ren, inside the north; at 7.5° the line towards Gui, inside the north.
• The Flying Stars: built in Period 9, a home facing Zi has the formations Double stars at the facing and Opposed chart; built in Period 8, the formation Double stars at the sitting.
• The year: Zi is the Grand Duke’s mountain in a Rat year, 2020 and 2032, which the classics suggest not facing for the year’s new beginnings, and the Year Breaker’s in 2026 and 2038, a side they suggest leaving undisturbed by works; with its two neighbours it holds the Three Killings in some years, such as 2026, 2030 and 2034, which they suggest facing rather than having at one’s back. The year’s 5 Yellow visits its palace, the north, in 2027 and 2036.

Across traditions

• The solar terms: on luopan plates that carry a ring of the solar terms, Zi goes with the Winter Solstice, the Sun at 270°, entering Capricorn in the Western zodiac.
• The south-pointing needle: Chinese calls the compass 指南針 zhǐnánzhēn, the needle that points south; the end that Western compasses watch lies over Zi, and the luopan’s red line, under the needle, runs from Zi to Wu.
• On the Mediterranean wind rose the north is the tramontana, the wind from beyond the mountains; in Vastu Shastra it belongs to Kubera, the guardian of wealth.

Origin and history

Zi has long ordered Chinese space as it orders time. Capitals were laid out on its line: Beijing’s central axis, which UNESCO listed in 2024, runs nearly eight kilometres from the Bell and Drum Towers in the north through the Forbidden City to the Yongding Gate in the south, the palace sitting in Zi and facing Wu. The Analects compare governing by virtue to the pole star, 北辰, which keeps its place in the north while the other stars turn round it.

How Ulune calculates it

Ulune finds the mountain a home faces from its magnetic facing, among 24 mountains of 15° counted from Ren at 337.5°: Zi takes every facing from 352.5° up to 7.5°, that edge belonging to the next, and the home sits in the mountain opposite, Wu. For the Flying Stars, Zi is the middle mountain of a cardinal palace, of the group the classics call the Heaven dragon, and so counts as yin: when the stars look to it for their flight, it sends a star backward. Its replacement star, from the classical verse, is 1, which takes the place of the number going to the centre when, near an edge, it is the mountain that decides.

Correspondences