Reading a whole chart from start to finish

The reading order

The last eight chapters gave you a lot of parts; this lesson strings them into one route for reading a chart. Order matters: understand the person first, then the combinations, and the timing last.

1. Who lives in the Life Palace: look at the Life Palace's main stars and their brightness; this is the basic personality. If it's an Empty Palace, read it with the opposite palace's main stars, a little weaker. Also see which cell the Body Palace falls in: that's the theme you put more and more effort into as life goes on.
2. Who arrives in the San Fang Si Zheng: read the Wealth, Career and Travel Palaces together. Six Auspicious Stars in these four cells are your helpers; Six Malefic Stars there are your exam questions. The "Revised Essentials of Dou Shu" says "what matters is seeing whether the stars gain their place or are held in check", which is this step.
3. Where the birth-year transformations land: Hua Lu's cell goes more smoothly, Hua Quan's is where you want to be in charge, Hua Ke's is where you're easily seen, and Hua Ji's is what you can't let go of. Then see which cell across the way Hua Ji clashes with.
4. Star groups and patterns: see which team leads in the Life Palace's San Fang Si Zheng: the pioneering Sha Po Lang, the steady Ji Yue Tong Liang or the managing Zi Fu Lian Wu Xiang. Treat any patterns you match as a bonus; matching none is perfectly normal.
5. Decade Luck: which cell this decade's Decade Life Palace is in and where the decade transformations land. This is the main thread of this season of your life.
6. Annual Luck: this year's Annual Life Palace and annual transformations. This is this episode's theme.

The ancients' order

The "Tan Xing Yao Lun" in volume three of the *Quan Shu* also lists an order:

First, look at the Life Palace: good or ill, Miao or Wang, good or bad transformations, support or restraint. Next, look at the Body Master: good or ill, support or restraint. Third, look at the stars of the three directions, Travel, Wealth and Career, for clashes and breaks.

In plain terms: first see whether the Life Palace's stars are good, whether they're bright, and whether they have good transformations or Hua Ji; next, the "Body Master", usually understood as the Body Palace side; and only third the three directions of Travel, Wealth and Career. The fourth step after that is "look at the Fortune Palace". It roughly matches the order above: the ancients also read a chart starting from the person themselves, then widening outward.

The "Gu Sui Fu" says "first look at Fortune, then examine Travel again and again". After reading the Life Palace, don't forget the Fortune Palace: whether you're at ease inside is often closer to how you actually feel than whether things go smoothly outside.

No need to panic about an Empty Palace

A Life Palace with no main star is an Empty Palace. The "Gu Sui Fu" has the line "Life without a main star: short-lived, lonely and poor", which is very harsh; yet the "Tan Xing Yao Lun" in the same book says that a Life Palace without a main star, as long as helpful stars shine in from the Wealth and Career Palaces, can still have "wealth and rank complete".

The same book giving two views of the same thing shows exactly what the "Gu Sui Fu" means by "good and bad fortune do not come by one road alone; good and ill cannot be judged by one example". Whatever verdict you read, put it back into the whole chart, and don't let one line decide who you are.

Three habits

• Write it down: for each step, write one sentence about what you read, like "Life Palace Tian Ji: thinks a lot and adapts well" or "Hua Ji in Career: work is what I care about most". Six sentences together make a summary of your chart.
• Compare with your life: ask yourself "am I like this?" Where it fits, put it to good use; where it doesn't, maybe you've grown into someone else.
• Read it again after a while: the Decade and Annual Luck change, and reading the same chart two years later brings out different points.

After you've read it

A chart is a map, and you've now learned how to read it. Where you go next is still your call.