Main stars are the owners of the rooms

The fourteen main stars at a glance

Xingge gives each main star a role to make it easier to remember:

• Zi Wei: The Emperor. Opinionated and proud, and needs people to back it up.
• Tian Ji: The Strategist. Quick-minded and full of ideas, and prone to overthinking.
• Tai Yang: The Navigator. Warm and giving, lighting others up first.
• Wu Qu: The Financier. Practical and decisive; only results count.
• Tian Tong: The Sunshine. Easygoing and pleasure-loving; hardship first, sweetness later.
• Lian Zhen: The Judge. Strong principles and strong emotions, with real magnetism.
• Tian Fu: The Steward. Steady and good at holding on; at ease only when there's something to guard.
• Tai Yin: The Poet. Attentive, gentle and in need of security.
• Tan Lang: The Player. Multi-talented and sociable, and wants a lot from life.
• Ju Men: The Debater. Always asking why; its words carry weight.
• Tian Xiang: The Chancellor. Fair, good at mediating, mindful of image.
• Tian Liang: The Elder. Loves looking after people and sticks to principles.
• Qi Sha: The General. Independent, driven, unafraid to decide.
• Po Jun: The Breaker. Restless with the status quo; tears down to rebuild.

These roles are a memory aid Xingge put together for you, not the original text. What the classics say, each later lesson quotes directly.

Two star groups

When the stars are placed, Zi Wei's position comes first, and from Zi Wei come Tian Ji, Tai Yang, Wu Qu, Tian Tong and Lian Zhen counterclockwise (skipping a few cells along the way). This is the Zi Wei group. Tian Fu's position mirrors Zi Wei's, and from Tian Fu come Tai Yin, Tan Lang, Ju Men, Tian Xiang, Tian Liang, Qi Sha and Po Jun clockwise. This is the Tian Fu group. So the positions of the fourteen main stars relative to each other are fixed: once you know where Zi Wei is, the other thirteen follow.

That's also why certain stars often live together, like Zi Wei and Tian Fu sharing a palace in Yin or Shen, or Tian Ji and Tian Liang in Chen or Xu. This chapter pairs up stars that often appear together.

Where the seven grades come from

The seven grade names come from the brightness table in volume two of the *Quan Shu*, whose headings are: Miao (Temple), Wang (Prosperous), De Di (Gaining Ground), Li Yi (Profit), Ping He (Average), Bu De Di (Unsupported) and Luo Xian (Fallen). In everyday use they're shortened to Miao, Wang, De, Li, Ping, Bu and Xian. The rhapsodies in volume one mostly speak only of the two ends, "Miao and Wang" and "Xian"; it's this table in volume two that splits them into seven grades.

• Miao: the most comfortable position, where the personality is most complete.
• Wang: very much at ease.
• De, Li: not bad; the traits come through.
• Ping: ordinary.
• Bu, Xian: more awkward, needing extra effort.

A few easy examples: Tai Yang is brightest in Mao and falls to Xian in Hai and Zi, like the sun going down; Tai Yin is the opposite, brightest in the night cells of Hai, Zi and Chou, and at Xian in Mao, Chen and Si. Zi Wei, Tian Fu, Wu Qu and Qi Sha have no Xian position on the table, and when volume three of the *Quan Shu* lists brightness star by star, it notes "no fall" after these four as well. Different schools' brightness tables differ slightly; Xingge uses this one table from volume two of the *Quan Shu* throughout, checked cell by cell.

Two common mix-ups

First, brightness depends on the cell's Earthly Branch, not the palace name. If your Tai Yang sits in your Wealth Palace, look at which branch your Wealth Palace is in: in Mao it's Miao, in Zi it's Xian. The same Tai Yang on someone else's chart may have a completely different brightness.

The *Quan Shu* sometimes also uses words like "temple-happy" and "fallen-weak" about palaces. For example, it says Tian Fu "takes Property and Wealth as its temple joy, and Servants and Appearance as its weakness". That's saying which kinds of matters Tian Fu handles best (land and money), which is a different thing from the branch-based brightness table, so keep them apart when reading the classics.

Second, brightness isn't a score. On Zi Wei, the *Quan Shu* says that "at Miao or Wang and transforming well, it is excellent; at Xian and transforming badly, it is very difficult": brightness has to be read together with the Four Transformations. At Miao or Wang with Hua Lu, it's smooth on top of smooth; at Xian with Hua Ji, it's hard on top of hard; most cases fall in between and need reading cell by cell. In practice, practitioners first treat brightness as a star's "foundation", then add and subtract based on the transformations, the stars sharing the palace and the San Fang Si Zheng.

Hua Qi: each star's essence

The classics give many main stars a single word called its "Hua Qi", something like the star's essential nature: Zi Wei transforms into Honor (the common later label; the *Quan Shu* calls it "the honored star of the central heavens" and says it "becomes the imperial seat"), Tian Ji into Goodness, Tai Yang into Nobility, Wu Qu into Wealth, Tian Tong into Blessing, Lian Zhen into Restraint, Tai Yin into Riches, Tan Lang into Peach Blossom, Ju Men into the Hidden, Tian Xiang into the Seal, Tian Liang into Shelter and Po Jun into Consumption. Each later lesson explains these in plain language.