What is the Tian Kong star?

When people see both "Di Kong" and "Tian Kong" on a chart, their first reaction is often that something was charted wrong. It wasn't: these are two different stars. Di Kong goes by birth hour and is one of the Six Malefic Stars; Tian Kong (Heavenly Void) goes by birth year and is a much lighter minor star. The names are alike and so are the meanings, both reminding you to "bring ideas down to earth," but their weight is very different. To see which palace your Tian Kong falls in, draw your chart.

What kind of star is Tian Kong

Tian Kong is a minor star with a touch of "emptiness": thinking far ahead, high ideals, and less attention to the reality in front of you. On its own it can't carry a palace's personality. It works more like a filter over that palace: expectations tend to run a little ahead of reality, and plans a little ahead of execution.

How Tian Kong is placed: the palace after your zodiac sign

Tian Kong goes only by the Earthly Branch of your birth year, and sits in the palace after the year branch. Someone born in a Zi year has Tian Kong in Chou, a Chou year in Yin, and so on, up to a Hai year in Zi. So people of the same zodiac sign all have Tian Kong in the same branch; month, day and hour make no difference. The zodiac year follows the lunar calendar, so if you were born before Lunar New Year, you count as the previous year. Tian Kong has no brightness ratings (Miao, Wang, Li, Xian).

On Xingge's charts, Tian Kong lands in the same place whether you use the default Quan Shu method or the Zhongzhou school in the chart settings.

Another method in the Daoist Canon edition: the Daoist Canon edition of Zi Wei Dou Shu (attributed to Chen Tuan, in the Ming supplement to the Daoist Canon) belongs to a different system of stars (the book calls them the Eighteen Flying Stars). It also has a Tian Kong placed by birth year: "start Zi at Wei and count forward to the person's birth year" to fix a starting point, then follow the book's order of stars. Worked out, that puts it in Yin for a Zi year and Mao for a Chou year, one palace later than the common position. Xingge's charts follow the common method, placing it in the palace after the year branch.

Not the same as the Quan Shu's "Tian Kong"

This is the easiest place to get confused when reading the classics. The verse for Tian Kong and Di Jie in volume two of the Zi Wei Dou Shu Quan Shu (The Complete Book of Zi Wei Dou Shu):

Start Zi at Hai and count forward to place Jie; counting backward is where Tian Kong lives.

That star is placed by birth hour, and is the Di Kong on today's charts. When the Quan Shu speaks of "Tian Kong and Di Jie" or "the Life Palace sitting with Tian Kong," it always means that star. This minor star Tian Kong, placed by year branch, isn't in the Quan Shu's placement verses; it came in with later methods. Most charting today calls the hour-based star Di Kong, and keeps the name Tian Kong for this year-based one.

So when you come across a line about Tian Kong in the classics, check it against the Di Kong page, and don't apply it to this minor star.

Tian Kong in key palaces

• Life Palace: many ideas and high ideals, not much bound by worldly standards, and more concerned with "why do this" than "how much will it earn." Where you tend to get stuck is stopping once the thinking is done.
• Spouse Palace: you have an ideal picture of love, and a real partner often differs from what you imagined. Saying your expectations out loud works better than waiting for them to guess.
• Wealth Palace: not very attached to money, and you often spend on ideas and experiences. Saving by fixed rules works better than relying on willpower.
• Career Palace: suited to work that needs imagination and concepts, like planning, design and research. Break plans into small steps so they don't stall at the proposal stage.
• Fortune Palace: a rich inner life and a liking for abstract questions, and also a tendency to overthink. Give yourself some time to work with your hands, and your mind settles.

Reading Tian Kong with main stars, transformations and luck periods

Tian Kong is light, so read the main star first. With a steady main star, like Tian Fu, Tian Xiang or Wu Qu, Tian Kong only adds some imagination. If the main star already loves to think or to change, Tian Kong raises the share of "thinking" a little more, and the habit of following through matters more.

• With Di Kong or Di Jie in the same palace: the sense of emptiness gets stronger, and that palace's affairs need one more round of checking.
• With Xun Kong, Jie Lu or Kong Wang in the same palace: several kinds of void stacked together, with similar meanings: things are less solid, so get it in writing.
• Hua Lu landing in the Tian Kong palace: the benefits are visible; remember to check that they actually come in.
• Hua Ji landing in the Tian Kong palace: what you care about tends to grow bigger the more you think about it. Taking one small step works better than thinking on and on.

When the Decade Luck or Annual Luck reaches the palace holding Tian Kong, practitioners often read it as "a period full of ideas, where following through takes a bit more effort." The Annual Luck lesson explains how to find which palace each year reaches.

Tian Kong, Di Kong, Xun Kong and Jie Kong: the differences

All of these have "kong" (void) in their names, but they are placed differently and carry different weight:

• Di Kong: goes by birth hour, one of the Six Malefic Stars, the heaviest. The Quan Shu writes it as Tian Kong.
• Tian Kong: goes by birth-year branch, a minor star, light.
• Xun Kong: goes by which ten-year cycle (xun) your birth year's stem-branch pair falls in. The Quan Shu calls it Xun Zhong Kong Wang.
• Jie Kong: goes by birth-year stem. The Quan Shu calls it Jie Lu Kong Wang; Xingge's default chart marks it as two cells, Jie Lu and Kong Wang.

The minor stars lesson gathers these small stars together.