One chart, twelve rooms

The twelve palaces in the classics

The "An Shi Er Gong Li" (How to Place the Twelve Palaces) in volume two of the *Quan Shu* lists them in this order: Life, Siblings, Wives and Concubines, Children, Wealth, Health, Travel, Servants, Career, Property, Fortune and Parents. Next to the heading is a note:

For men and women alike, count counterclockwise; never go clockwise.

In other words, whatever your sex, the palaces run counterclockwise from the Life Palace. Today's common names turn "Wives and Concubines" into the Spouse Palace and "Servants" into the Friends Palace (some books also use "Subordinates"); the rest are unchanged.

What each cell looks at

• Life Palace: the core of who you are, your first reactions and basic personality.
• Siblings Palace: brothers and sisters, peers and business partners.
• Spouse Palace: close relationships, how you love and what you value in a partner.
• Children Palace: children, and by extension the work you create and the students or staff you bring up.
• Wealth Palace: how you earn and spend.
• Health Palace: Xingge only uses it to look at how you carry stress and how you wear yourself out.
• Travel Palace: how you are away from home and in new surroundings.
• Friends Palace: friends, coworkers and the people in your circles.
• Career Palace: work and career.
• Property Palace: home and real estate, and whether you can hold on to things.
• Fortune Palace: your inner life and interests, and whether you feel at ease.
• Parents Palace: parents and elders, and by extension bosses and institutions.

Palace names and seats are two different things

The thing beginners mix up most is the palace names and the Earthly Branches. The branches are the seats, the same on every chart: Yin at the bottom left, then clockwise Mao, Chen, Si, all the way round to Chou. The palace name is who sits in that seat, and it differs from person to person. Your Life Palace might be in Wu while a friend's is in Hai.

So when you read someone else's chart, first find which branch their Life Palace is in, then count counterclockwise cell by cell. An easy way to remember it: on either side of the Life Palace, the counterclockwise neighbor is Siblings and the clockwise neighbor is Parents, and directly opposite is Travel. Get those four and the rest are easy to find.

Don't read the names too literally

The palace names were chosen by the ancients, and reading them literally narrows them down. The Children Palace isn't just "will you have kids"; it also covers how you bring up younger people and treat your own work. The Parents Palace isn't only about your mom and dad; it also covers how you get along with bosses and institutions. The Friends Palace was once called the Servants Palace and looked at household servants; today it looks at friends and coworkers.

The modern reading widens each cell into "a kind of relationship" or "a kind of resource". Read that way, someone with no partner and no children still has plenty to read in the Spouse and Children Palaces.

The order the ancients read in

The twelve cells don't carry equal weight. The "Tan Xing Yao Lun" in volume three of the *Quan Shu* lists the order the ancients read a chart in: first the Life Palace, then the Body Master, then the three trines of Travel, Wealth and Career, and fourth the Fortune Palace. It also calls the Life, Body, Travel, Wealth, Career and Fortune positions the "eight seats", and says that when all of them are strong, it's a foundation for wealth, rank and long life.

In today's terms: first look at you as a person, then at how you are out in the world, how you earn and how you work, and then at whether you feel at ease inside. The other cells are details. Reading in this order as a beginner keeps you from getting lost.

Read one cell, but never only one cell

The twelve palaces don't stand alone. The room directly across is called the opposite palace, like Life opposite Travel, or Spouse opposite Career: you at home and you out in the world; your love life and your career. Then there's the San Fang Si Zheng, which Chapter 1 covers.