Xuankong Flying Stars Chart

What this page charts

This page takes two inputs: the facing degree and the period to cast for. The degree is still the mark the compass rests on at the facing end, due north counting as 0° and the circle running clockwise to 360°, and any degree from 0 to 359.9 is accepted; the sitting mountain is the opposite cell, so it is never entered by hand. The period runs 1 to 9 and each option carries the twenty years it governs. The result prints the period, mountain and facing charts across the nine palaces, the star entering the center of each chart, whether it flies forward or in reverse, where 5 Yellow lands, and the chart type.

Form and facing

The three charts share one grid and differ only in which star enters the center. The period chart takes the timely star and flies it forward through the palaces along the Luoshu order: 1 White at the center in Period 1, 9 Purple in Period 9. The mountain chart takes the star the period chart left in the palace of the sitting mountain. The facing chart takes the star it left in the palace of the facing mountain. A facing in Wu sits on Zi, Zi is in Kan 1, so the mountain chart starts from the period star standing in Kan.

Nine palaces and stars

Forward or in reverse is not read off the sitting or facing mountain itself. It comes from the home palace of the star entering the center: of the three mountains in that palace, the one sharing this chart's dragon gives its yin or yang, and yang flies forward while yin flies in reverse. Cast Period 9 sitting Wu, facing Zi: 9 Purple enters the center of the period chart and flies forward; the mountain chart takes 4 Green from the Li palace, whose home palace is Xun, and the Heaven Dragon mountain there is Xun itself, which is yang, so the mountain chart flies forward; the facing chart takes 5 Yellow from the Kan palace, which has no home palace, so it falls back on the yin of Zi itself and flies in reverse.

Annual and monthly cycles

The chart type looks at where the timely star sits in the mountain and facing charts. When the mountain chart holds it in the palace of the sitting and the facing chart holds it in the palace of the facing, both stars stay in place and the chart is "Both mountain and facing timely"; when the two swap palaces it is "Mountain and water reversed"; when both sit in the sitting palace it is "Two stars meet at the sitting", and when both sit in the facing palace, "Two stars meet at the facing". All twenty-four on-center charts fall into these four and the spread differs by period: Period 9 and Period 1 give only the two meeting types, twelve charts each; Period 5 gives only timely and reversed, twelve each; the other seven periods give six of each. A leaning line flies the substitute chart instead, and there the timely star can land outside those four names; a chart like that prints the three grids and where 5 Yellow lands, with no chart type named.

Compass, Purple-White and Bazhai

Below the form is the Three Dragons and Yin-Yang table of the twenty-four mountains: 24 rows running three mountains to a palace (Ren-Zi-Gui, Chou-Gen-Yin, Jia-Mao-Yi and on) across Mountain, Trigram, Direction, Dragon and Yin or yang, which is exactly where the forward or reverse verdict is drawn from. A facing no more than 4.5 degrees from the center of its mountain is an on-center line, and that is the charting described above; past 4.5 degrees it is a leaning line, and this page flies the substitute chart for it the way convention does. A facing sitting on the seam between two mountains is a void reading that convention takes no facing from, and this page charts it under the mountain the facing falls in. Where the degree comes from is on the Twenty-Four Mountains Luopan Calculator page, the twenty-year cycle on the Feng Shui Nine Periods Lookup page, the year and month stars on their own on the Feng Shui Purple-White Stars Chart page, and the East or West group on the Feng Shui Eight Mansions Chart page.

Three Dragons and Yin-Yang for the Twenty-Four Mountains

Each palace holds three mountains, and in order on the Earth Plate regular needle they are the Earth, Heaven and Human Dragons. Whether the mountain and facing charts fly forward or in reverse comes from the yin or yang of the mountain in the home palace of the star at the center palace that shares one dragon with the sitting or facing mountain: yang flies forward, yin flies in reverse. Only 5 Yellow has no home palace of its own, and then the chart falls back on the sitting or facing mountain itself.

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