What is Di Wang?

Di Wang (Peak) is the fifth of the Twelve Life Stages (Chang Sheng) and the strongest in the set, like a flower in full bloom. Whichever palace has Di Wang, its affairs are at full strength: plenty of energy and conviction, and you're at your boldest. At the very top, remember to ease off a little. The Twelve Life Stages lesson suggests finding your Di Wang first, since that palace is usually where you feel most sure of yourself. To see which palace your Di Wang is in, draw your chart.

How Di Wang is placed

First find Chang Sheng from the Five Elements Bureau, then count four palaces on, by yin or yang and gender, and that is Di Wang:

Counting forward, Di Wang lands in Zi, Mao, You or Wu, which are exactly the strongest directions of Water, Wood, Metal and Fire. The original text in volume two of the Zi Wei Dou Shu Quan Shu (The Complete Book of Zi Wei Dou Shu) says "count forward for men, backward for women." Xingge sets the direction by yin or yang and gender, so for people born in a yin year Di Wang lands on the Chen, Wei, Chou, Xu side.

What Di Wang means: in full bloom

Di Wang's strength is abundance: energy, drive and conviction are all at a high, things move when you push, and you're willing to step up and carry them. Both Di Wang and the stage before it, Lin Guan (Taking Office), are strong stages: Lin Guan is steady, Di Wang is fierce.

Strength brings its own lessons. With very strong opinions, you sometimes don't hear what others say; wanting to do everything yourself can wear out both you and the people around you. After Di Wang comes Shuai (Decline), and the order the ancients chose is itself a reminder: once you reach the top, start thinking about how to draw back.

In a few key palaces

• Life Palace: confident, opinionated and bold, you're often the one leading. Leave a little more room for other people's views, and the road gets wider.
• Wealth Palace: you earn with nerve, willing to push hard and to spend. When money is at its strongest, set your stop-loss and savings lines first.
• Career Palace: your greatest drive is at work, well suited to carrying big projects and leading a team. Remember to share out the work instead of taking it all on alone.
• Spouse Palace: you put a lot into relationships, and when both of you have strong personalities it's easy to compete over who leads. Taking turns to decide makes the relationship last.
• Health Palace: plenty of energy, and also easy to forget to rest. When your stamina is good, that's when it matters most to schedule regular downtime.

Di Wang is not a main star's "Miao and Wang"

The chart has another kind of strength: a main star's brightness, graded Miao, Wang, De, Li, Ping and Xian, which says how well that star performs in that position. Di Wang is a stage name in the Twelve Life Stages and says that a palace's energy has reached its peak. They are two separate things. So a main star at Xian can still sit with Di Wang, and the reading becomes "plenty of strength, but it needs the right direction to push in."

Natal only, unchanged in each year

On the Xingge chart the Twelve Life Stages are a single natal set that never moves; when you switch to an Annual Luck, it is the Twelve General Gods (Jiang Qian) and the Twelve Year Gods (Sui Qian) that change. If the year's Life Palace reaches your natal Di Wang, that year's theme falls where you were always most sure of yourself. For the full placement method, see the Twelve Life Stages overview.