The eight trigrams are associated with the four cardinal directions of North, South, East and West, as well as the four sub-cardinal directions of Northwest, Southwest, Northeast and Southeast.

In a Feng Shui analysis, personal best directions are relegated to a person based on them being categorized as an East Type Person or a West Type person. Whether one is east type or west type is based on year of birth. And the Feng Shui Solar calendar always begins on February 4th or 5th, not on January 1st. So, a person born January 27, 1969 would be considered born in 1968.

The East group people favor the easterly directions of East, Southeast, North and South, whereas the West group people favor the westerly directions of West, Southwest, Northwest and Northeast. These favored directions are with you for your whole life, and even in death when it comes to ideal orientation of a grave site.

In many modern Feng Shui schools, the Ba Zhai or Eight House method is now incorporated to some degree. There are various deductions made with a year of birth to arrive at one of these Personal trigrams, associated with a certain direction and classification of East Type or West Type.

For people born in certain years, the mathematical deductions leave them with the number 5, which is not associated with any direction. Rather, it is associated with the energy of “center.” Compared to North (1), Southwest (2), East (3), Southeast (4), Northwest (6), West (7), Northeast (8), and South (9), the 5 star (which is technically not a “gua”) resides in the center. And the 5 star, like the control tower, is a very powerful position.

In fact, 5 Star people, such as those born in 1941, 1950, 1959, 1968, 1977, 1986, and 1995 can be powerful people. However, in many modern Feng Shui Schools, the 5 Star people get relegated to being a 2 Kun trigram person if they are male or an 8 Gen trigram person if they are female. This is because the “center” is not a direction.

However, the 5 Star person does exist in other systems besides the Ba Zhai School. Instead of being relegated to the West group, the 5 Star person maintains their own autonomy in the divination art known as Nine Star Ki. This is a Japanese system which has its origins with the same Luo Shu as Feng Shui.

As well, there are Feng Shui practitioners, like myself, who will identify a person as being a 5 “Soil” star if they are not adhering strictly to the Ba Zhai School, which also made the distinct alteration about 1200 years ago to give females a different personal trigram when born in the same year as a male. This happens to be a little known distinction and when presented to the Feng Shui community at large, it becomes quite controversial, although it is certainly not the only controversy or discrepancy among different Feng Shui schools.

The 5 Star people are related to the Earth element. This Star has as its signature weak body areas as the pancreas, then the spleen and digestive organs.

5 Star people are good with ALL the directions. They do not need to be concerned with whether they are East Type or West Type, although the other Earth trigrams, Kun and Gen, are Westerly.

In the conventional Eight House method, certain directions for each person will signify different potentialities, like a certain sleeping direction being better than another or a certain direction being good for attracting wealth. As stated, the 5 Star people have a command over all the directions. But, when push comes to shove, we could say that the 5 Star person, as an earth element type person, may associate more with the westerly directions of Northeast, West, Northwest and Southwest.

Having a sleeping direction, entrance or desk position in one of these directions may suit the 5 Star person really well.It is actually understood in Chinese metaphysics that all the trigrams spring from the 5 “Yellow Star” and that the eight trigrams are just different faces and phases of the same original energy. The 5 Star is powerful and often referred to as the Emperor.

Author: Kartar Diamond
Company: Feng Shui Solutions (R) Since 1992
From the Health & Personal Matters Blog Series