Chart patterns are set bonuses

Where chart patterns come from

The ancients looked at huge numbers of charts and noticed that whenever certain stars came together in fixed positions, the person often had a similar look, so they named the combination. Most names are pictures: "Qi Sha Chao Dou" is a general facing the Dipper, "Ri Yue Bing Ming" is sun and moon shining at once, "Ming Zhu Chu Hai" is a pearl rising from the sea. Remember the picture first, and the conditions come more easily.

The patterns in the *Zi Wei Dou Shu Quan Shu* are scattered across several places. The "Gu Sui Fu" in volume one and the long list of patterns in volume three write them as one line of conditions followed by one line of outcome, like "Qi Sha facing the Dipper: rank and salary flourish". At the end of volume one there are also four short lists written like a dictionary: the pattern name first, then one sentence on its conditions. For example, the "Patterns of Nobility": "The sun rising from Fusang: the sun in Mao guarding Life." That is, Tai Yang sitting in the Life Palace in Mao is enough.

What the four lists sort

• "Patterns of Wealth": about money and family property, like "Sun and Moon Shining on the Wall", Tai Yang and Tai Yin in the Property Palace.
• "Patterns of Nobility": about status and being valued; the longest list, including Jun Chen Qing Hui and Qi Sha Chao Dou.
• "Patterns of Poverty and Humility": combinations the ancients saw as harder going.
• "Miscellaneous Patterns": not about the Life Palace but about how the natal chart and the luck periods fit together. For example, "a withered tree meets spring: a weak chart with good luck periods": an ordinary natal chart can still rise when a good Decade Luck comes.

That last list is often skipped, but it makes a point: even the ancients didn't think reading the patterns settled everything. The time layer (Chapter 6) has to be counted in too.

How stars make a set

In the end, pattern conditions come down to just three positional relationships:

• Sharing a palace: several stars live in the same cell, like Zi Wei and Tian Fu together in the Life Palace, called Zi Fu Tong Gong.
• Shining in: the stars are spread across the Life Palace's San Fang Si Zheng, shining in from the opposite palace and the two trines, like Fu Xiang Chao Yuan.
• Flanking: a pair of stars sits on either side of a cell, wrapping the cell in between, like Zuo Fu and You Bi flanking the Life Palace, covered in detail two lessons from now.

Many patterns mix them. Jun Chen Qing Hui needs Zi Wei in the Life Palace, which is sharing a palace; Zuo Fu and You Bi can share the palace or shine in from the trines. The "assistants embracing the lord" in the "Patterns of Nobility" even says outright that "flanking also counts". So when you look for patterns, check all three relationships.

Two sizes

• Life patterns: read from the Life Palace and its San Fang Si Zheng, describing the tone of the whole chart, like Jun Chen Qing Hui, Yang Liang Chang Lu and Sha Po Lang.
• In-palace combinations: combinations a single cell forms on its own, affecting only the matters that cell governs.

The easiest way to misread in-palace combinations is forgetting that the same name in a different cell takes on that cell's meaning. Take "Lu Feng Kong Jie" (a Lu star meeting Di Kong and Di Jie): in the Wealth Palace, it's about savings tending to leak; in the Career Palace, it becomes the results of your hard work tending to get divided up or come to nothing.

The right mindset for patterns

Patterns are shortcuts the ancients put together: a way to see at a glance where a chart's emphasis lies. They're a starting point, not a conclusion. The same pattern reads differently depending on which stars arrive in the San Fang Si Zheng, whether there's a Hua Ji, and whether the main stars are bright, which the last lesson of this chapter covers.

Many charts match no famous pattern at all, and that's completely normal. Without a set bonus, single pieces of gear can still win the fight.