The Four Transformations are four impulses

What the transformations are

The Four Transformations are Hua Lu, Hua Quan, Hua Ke and Hua Ji. When a heavenly stem touches a star, that star takes on an extra quality; its original personality is still there, it's just been given a push in one direction. Under its heading, the transformation rhyme in volume two of the *Quan Shu* carries the notes "on the birth-year stem" and "transforming with fire". Readings of the latter phrase have always differed; it's enough to know it's there.

The classics treat them as stars, but they have no position

Volume one of the *Quan Shu* has four sections, beginning with "What Does Hua Lu Govern?", that discuss the transformations as stars in question-and-answer form; volume two even assigns them elements: Hua Lu earth, Hua Quan wood, Hua Ke water and Hua Ji water.

But the transformations differ from other stars: they have no placement rule of their own and always attach to some star. Xingge's charts mark them the same way. You'll never see a lone "Hua Lu", only "Wu Qu Hua Lu" or "Tai Yang Hua Ji". So reading a transformation always means reading "what a particular star transformed into".

Four impulses

• Hua Lu: connection, ease, reward. The star becomes smoother and easier to get along with.
• Hua Quan: control, leading, strength. The star wants the final say.
• Hua Ke: reputation, standing, recognition. The star is easily seen.
• Hua Ji: caring, holding on, not letting go. The star marks where you put the most thought.

The transformations aren't good or bad. Hua Lu is smooth but scatters easily; Hua Ji gets stuck, but is often where you're most serious.

Where the transformations come from

The transformations are set by the Heavenly Stems. Each of the ten stems is paired with four stars, which take Hua Lu, Quan, Ke and Ji in order, and the *Quan Shu* turns this into a rhyme: "Jia: Lian Zhen, Po Jun, Wu Qu and Tai Yang keep company; Yi: Tian Ji, Tian Liang, Zi Wei and the Moon intertwine..."

A chart has several layers of stems, so the transformations have several layers too:

1. Birth-year transformations: from the stem of your birth year, carried for life.
2. Decade transformations: a new set each time the decade stem changes, every ten years.
3. Annual transformations: a new set every year.
4. Palace-stem transformations: each of the twelve cells has a stem, used for Flying Stars and self-transformation.

The *Quan Shu*'s rhyme is labeled "on the birth-year stem", so it mainly covers the first layer. Using palace stems to fly the transformations is a reading developed later by the Flying Star school.

The basic sentence for reading a transformation

Practitioners often read a transformation with this sentence: "such-and-such star takes such-and-such transformation, in such-and-such palace". The star tells you which personality is being pushed, the transformation tells you which direction, and the palace tells you which area of life it's used in.

For example, "Tai Yang Hua Quan in the Career Palace" can be read as: at work, you want to lead with warmth and be the one in charge. Change it to "Tai Yang Hua Ji in the Career Palace" and the same warmth becomes deep concern over whether your effort is noticed; you often do a lot and feel no one knows.

Two common misunderstandings

• Some people are born missing a transformation. They aren't. Every year stem transforms four stars, and all four are on every chart, so everyone's birth-year transformations are a complete set of four. The only difference is which cells they land in.
• A transformation takes up a palace. Transformations aren't new stars, so no extra cell appears for them. They sit wherever their star sits.

The rest of this chapter gives one lesson each to Lu, Quan with Ke, and Ji, then looks at where Hua Ji sits and what it clashes with, then finds your own birth-year transformations, and finally takes a first look at Flying Stars.