What is Mu?

Mu (Storehouse) is the ninth of the Twelve Life Stages (Chang Sheng). The character literally means "tomb," but here it means a storehouse. The San Ming Tong Hui, a Ming-dynasty classic of Bazi (Four Pillars), writes "it is called Mu, also called the storehouse, because all things, their work done, are put away in store": after the harvest, things go into the granary. It means building up without showing off, and what you store will be useful later. Whichever palace has Mu, you tend to quietly save up its affairs and are in no hurry to bring them out. To see which palace your Mu is in, draw your chart.

How Mu is placed

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

Counting forward, Mu lands in Chen, Wei, Chou or Xu, which are exactly the storehouses 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 the direction runs opposite to the original text.

The Quan Shu's "tomb storehouse"

The Lun Zhu Xing Tong Yuan section (on stars sharing a palace) in volume three has this line:

Look at which palace holds the Na Yin tomb storehouse.

(Quan Shu, volume three, Lun Zhu Xing Tong Yuan)

The note beneath it gives the example "for those born under Water, the tomb is at Chen; meeting the Wealth or Career Palace, or Lu Cun, there is especially fine." Water's tomb is in Chen, and if the Chen palace is the Wealth or Career Palace, or holds Lu Cun, the ancients considered it especially good. The point is that a storehouse is only useful when it holds the right things. The note uses the Na Yin element of the birth year, a different method from the chart's Mu placed by the Five Elements Bureau, but the reading of "Mu as a storehouse" is the same.

What Mu means: saving up slowly

Mu's strength is patience: while others rush to cash in, you're willing to store things away first. Where it tends to get stuck is holding back too much. Good things kept in the storehouse and never brought out are things nobody sees. When it's time to use them, remember to open the doors.

In a few key palaces

• Life Palace: low-key and reserved, not one to show off, you work by building up. Your ability is often only noticed after some time has passed.
• Wealth Palace: very good at saving and careful with spending, well suited to building up over the long term. Once you've saved to a certain point, let the money work for you too.
• Career Palace: your expertise is built up over time, suited to work that rewards experience and seniority. Gather what you've built up and show it to people.
• Spouse Palace: you don't put feelings into words much, and your care shows in what you do. Saying it out loud now and then will reassure your partner more.
• Health Palace: stress tends to stay bottled up and is only noticed after it has piled up. Sort through what's on your mind regularly, like clearing out a storeroom.

Mu is not the "four tomb palaces"

Many mentions of "tomb" in the Quan Shu refer to the Chen, Xu, Chou and Wei palaces, called the four tomb palaces. For example, the Gu Sui Fu in volume one says "Tan Lang and Wu Qu in the tomb, good fortune only after thirty," meaning Tan Lang and Wu Qu sitting together in a tomb palace such as Chou or Wei. That is a name for branch palaces, and everyone's Chen, Xu, Chou and Wei are the four tomb palaces. Mu in the Twelve Life Stages is placed by the Five Elements Bureau and direction, so it lands somewhere different for each person. Read the two separately.

Natal only, unchanged in each year

The Twelve Life Stages are a single natal set that never moves; when you switch to an Annual Luck, it is the Jiang Qian and Sui Qian sets that change. For the full placement method, see the Twelve Life Stages overview.