What the Metal 4 · Tian Xiang type is like
A Metal 4 Tian Xiang carries a set of scales: who took more, who came off worse, it is all weighed precisely in their head. Their fairness is not about smoothing things over. They put both sides on the scales and let the numbers speak.
Tian Xiang meets the Metal 4 Bureau
Nearly 40% of Tian Xiang in this bureau sit at Fallen (Xian) brightness, the most of the five. Tian Xiang is Water and the Metal 4 Bureau is Metal; Metal produces Water, so the bureau keeps topping Tian Xiang up. Metal is also clear-cut and sharp-edged, so this type mediates with a ruler in hand and aims for fairness, not just harmony. Mao is the most common palace, at a little over 27%, and Hai the rarest at about 7%. Gain (De) and Fallen split almost evenly, with Temple (Miao) at about 21%. A Tian Xiang in Mao or You always has Lian Zhen and Po Jun in the opposite palace, and close to 38% of this bureau has that combination. A Fallen Tian Xiang does not stand at centre stage; it tends to work behind the scenes and in the details, and that is exactly where the ruler Metal 4 hands it gets used.
Work and money
They suit work that needs weighing: audit, compliance, quality management, arbitration, financial review, procurement. With Lian Zhen and Po Jun opposite, the world around them is often rewriting rules and tearing down old systems, and they are the one who can draft the new rules fairly enough that people accept them. With money their accounts are exact. They remember who owes whom and pay back their own debts first. They do not love risk, but when an opportunity is legal, within the system and easy to calculate, they move quickly enough.
Love and getting along
In love they care about fairness: time, money and effort between two people, and whether one side is giving too much. That keeps the relationship from tipping over, but now and then makes the partner feel they are reconciling accounts. Some giving in love is lopsided by nature: you give more this month, I give more next month. Once the scales get a rest at home, they may find they are being well looked after too.
When things get stuck
Use scales long enough and everything wants weighing. Who should pay more at dinner, whose share of the work is lighter: the more exact the sums, the more tired they feel. A second drain is stepping in over an injustice that is not theirs to fix, and getting thanks from neither side. A first question helps: is this mine? If yes, bring out the scales. If not, let the people involved decide whether to ask for them.
The rhythm of the 10-year periods
Metal 4 starts its first period at age 4 (counted the traditional way), changes for the first time at 14, then at 24 and 34. For Tian Xiang, whatever palace a period moves into becomes the thing to be weighed: in a palace about friends, it weighs goodwill; in a palace about career, it weighs rules. In the first year or two after a change they are often recalibrating, and their standards can look tight one day and loose the next, so others may think they have changed. They have only changed what is on the scales, and with a little time it settles.
For the full picture of this persona, see Tian Xiang · The Chancellor.
Where it comes from in Purple Star Astrology
In this type Tian Xiang leads the Life Palace. The Life Palace is the one of twelve that says who you are, and its main star sets your base color; when two main stars share it, the first one counts.
The bureau is the Metal 4 Bureau. The Five Elements Bureau comes from the Nayin of your Life Palace stem and branch; it places the Zi Wei star on the chart and sets the age your first 10-year period starts, which is 4 for this bureau. No bureau is better than another; Xingge reads it as a flavour of the same persona.
Across 2,155 charts of this type:
- Life Palace branch
- Mao 27.5%, Si 20.6%, Chou 20.6%, Wei 13.8%, You 10.6%, Hai 6.9%
- Star brightness
- De (Gain) 41.3%, Xian (Fallen) 38.1%, Miao (Temple) 20.6%
- Elements
- Tian Xiang is Water; the Metal 4 Bureau is Metal
What is the Five Elements Bureau ›Find my bureau ›Tian Xiang ›
Draw your chart to see your type
Enter your birth date and time for a free full chart; your persona card shows your type.
Tian Xiang in the other bureaus
Other personas in the Metal 4 Bureau
Famous people of the Tian Xiang persona
FAQ
A Metal 4 Tian Xiang often sits Fallen in Mao or You. What is that like?
A Fallen Tian Xiang does not much like the front of the stage; it tends to work behind the scenes, in the details and inside the rules. The second volume says that in Mao and You it is “in a fallen position; people born in Yi or Xin years have good fortune,” naming the position and also who does well in it. The first volume has another line often applied to Fallen brightness, “Even if it is in an idle, weak place, it is still lucky,” but the idle place there means an idle palace, not brightness: Tian Xiang is a good star even in an unimportant palace. Putting their effort into fairness people can see is a weighty way to be in its own right.
What does Lian Zhen and Po Jun in the opposite palace mean for Tian Xiang?
When Tian Xiang sits alone in Mao or You, the opposite palace, the Travel Palace, always holds Lian Zhen and Po Jun. The Travel Palace shows the outside world and how you fare away from home, and these are two stars of change and reform. They point to settings where rules are shifting and organisations are being restructured. Tian Xiang itself is steady, so in that kind of setting it is often the one trusted to build the new order.
How common is the Metal 4 · Tian Xiang type?
Out of 262,980 charts cast for every day and every two-hour period from 1950–2009, 2,155 have Tian Xiang leading the Life Palace and the Metal 4 Bureau: about 0.8%, roughly 1 in 122 people. Every day and hour is counted equally, so this is not the actual birth distribution of a population.
Why can two people born on the same day be different types?
Where your Life Palace falls depends on your birth month and birth hour, and your Five Elements Bureau comes from the stem and branch of that palace. So on the same day, one two-hour period later moves the Life Palace by one, and the main star and bureau can both change. The twelve hours of a single day usually produce several different types.
What is the Five Elements Bureau?
The Five Elements Bureau is the Nayin element of your Life Palace stem and branch: Water 2, Wood 3, Metal 4, Earth 5 or Fire 6. The number places the Zi Wei star on the chart and is also the age your first 10-year period begins (2 for Water, 6 for Fire). A bigger number is not better or worse; Xingge reads the element as a flavour of the same persona.
How is this different from MBTI?
MBTI comes from a questionnaire about how you see yourself. An Xingge type comes from your birth date and time, with nothing to answer, and the same birth details always give the same type. They work well side by side: MBTI describes your current habits, the chart describes your underlying nature and the rhythm of your life.
Which type do I get if my Life Palace has two main stars?
When two main stars share the Life Palace, the one listed first (in the order of the Zi Wei and Tian Fu star groups) sets the persona, the same as on your chart page. A Life Palace with no main star is the Empty Palace: the Traveler.
A type looks only at the Life Palace and the bureau: the roughest outline of a chart. People of the same type differ in the Body Palace, the surrounding palaces and the transformations.