Normally I would start out defining what a flying star chart is, before fleshing out the different applications. But the whole point of this article is to convey just how there is more than one definition of a flying star chart. There are also different schools of Feng Shui which support these contradictory and competing ideas. In fact, even when two practitioners agree on the same chart, they may still disagree on how to interpret it and how to treat it.
Date of Construction: Most flying star practitioners (Xuan Kong Fei Xing), calculate and interpret the energy inside a house or building based on when it was built (TIME) and its compass orientation (SPACE.) This unseen magnetic field is sealed inside a structure when the roof goes on.
This could be seen as the conservative application because it adheres to the original principles of Time and Space and it embraces definitive protocols for how we view a house if it is remodeled or moved and how that may or may not change the “Period” of the flying star chart, or even if a structure can have more than one chart. Other theories are then extrapolated from this practice, such as some practitioners who micro-manage an apartment within a larger building or a singular room within a house.
Date of Occupancy: This theory asserts that the occupant can switch on the dormant flying star chart, based on when the person moves in. There are so many problems associated with this theory that I have had to dissect it at length in other published materials. In a nutshell, this theory gives a lot of power to the human, supplanting the immense powers of the Sun and Earth, which is the foundation of the whole Flying Star School. I would consider this the most “liberal” or loose interpretation. There are several reasons why practitioners of this method get false positives when they assess a property, such as when a person happens to move into the house within the same Construction Period it was built. Both would yield the same flying star chart.
Current Period Chart: This approach is similar the Date of Occupancy theory in that it partially ignores the foundational essence of the Flying Star school and instead states that all houses and buildings will convert into a new chart each time we begin a new 20 year Period. For example, if your house was built in Period 7, this theory would say the house morphed into a Period 8 chart in 2004 and then again changed into a Period 9 house in 2024.
From more than 30 years’ of experience and thousands of clients, I know this is a faulty assumption, but I concede that a) the interpretation of the house’s flying star chart changes with each succeeding Period, but not the chart itself. As well, we can allow for a “shadow” influence on each house based on the current Period, but it is not the main influence. Compare this notion to a human, born in a certain Period. Does the human become a new baby every 20 years? No. It’s the same person, decade after decade, but they look and behave differently as they age.
Open Land: One of the most liberal applications of a flying star chart is to interpret open, unbuilt land, based on the assumed “sitting and facing” directions of the parcel and then projections of a flying star chart based on when a structure will eventually be built. This method is sometimes used when trying to determine the best location on the lot of land to build. This practice is highly problematic because it would be a very laborious task trying to test out this theory.
One could conduct an experiment by comparing two parcels of land facing the same direction. We’ll define the facing side here as an existing street or road. If the parcels are the same size and the land itself is the same (flat, elevated), we could divide each parcel up into directional zones. We can then place structures on each plot in different locations and make those structures otherwise identical. We can then wait a few decades to see if the inhabitants from one house fared better than the inhabitants of the house in the other location. What complicates this experiment further is that we might also need to have identical twins occupy each house and have them decorate each house the same. Who is going to be able to conduct that kind of experiment? This also disregards personal destiny, even for twins who share the same DNA.
Yin House: Somewhat related to an Open Land chart is the divination of a grave site. What is similar to the Open Land concept is that there is no conventionally built structure for a grave site, minus the uncommon mausoleum. Yin House or grave site selection is a challenge to act on because people often choose a grave plot, not knowing when they will die. I can use myself as an example and my current age; I don’t know if I will pass away in Period 9 or the next Period 1.
With the grave site, there is a “sitting” and “facing” side and at least the flying star chart for it will factor in both Time and Space (Direction). The grave site also does “house” the remains of a person, in a box. Not a typical “construction” by any means, but here is where it is different from open land since there is earth below the “coffin house” and it has a tombstone or marker which acts like a “roof.” When comparing the months’ long construction of a house, with the quick “move in” date of a grave site, even a flying star practitioner may have a hard time wrapping their head around the creation of a flying star chart for a grave.
This article does not compare other manifestations of stars such as a Trigram Direction star, an Annual Star, or the completely different handling of the stars in the distinct practice of Nine Star Ki. Rather, I am only referring to the Flying Star chart which has a “mountain dragon star” and a “water dragon star” in each of the eight directions. The mountain dragon and the water dragon represent the traveling Time star, parked in the sitting and facing sectors and then moved to the “center.” The initial stars in the sitting and facing sectors originate from the central Period star, based on the Construction year.
This is why I can distinguish the hierarchy of the Construction Period chart over the Current Period chart. This is also why I shudder when I see on-line annual and monthly star advice being dispensed, which ignores the permanent stars. This can be as haphazard as dispensing medical advice without doing an in-person examination and performing the non-obvious vital information that might only be revealed by x-rays or blood work.
When all is said and done, I have to marvel at the geniuses who figured out these subtle influences and how they impact people on Earth. The flying stars are bundles of qi-life force energy and they have intelligence, so they are in charge, not me. The fact that these energies know how to expand and contract with remodeling and how to uniquely affect different people is truly mind-boggling.
Conservative and liberal interpretations of other predictive arts also exist. For example, people born in the Year of the Rat and Ox can support each other and be good friends. Each can benefit from the other’s energy. That would be the conservative understanding of how people have auras and personalities that influence each other. A very “liberal” and loose application of that principle would be if a person born in the Year of the Rat decided to wear an Ox pendant, as if the trinket carried the same energy as a human being. This is also how superstitions get started.
Author: Kartar Diamond
Company: Feng Shui Solutions ®
From the Feng Shui Theory Blog Series
