Tian Shi: the messenger star in the Health palace

The name "messenger" comes before the position

Tian Shi (天使) is a minor star whose place follows the Life palace and which always sits in the Health palace; the "shi" in the name means an envoy, and the book calls it the "messenger star".

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The example chart comes from the site engine (iztro 2.6.0, default settings): born at the Rabbit hour on 7 July 2016, Life on Dragon; the arc joins the Life palace to the Travel palace opposite it.

The picture is an example chart, born at the Rabbit hour on 7 July 2016, with the Life palace on Dragon. Counting forward from Life, the fifth place, Rooster, is Tian Shang, the sixth, Dog, is the Travel palace, and the seventh, Pig, is Tian Shi. Three branches in a row, with Travel in the middle. Juan 2 gives each star its own entry, and the entry on Tian Shi opens with a short line:

Tian Shi is Water, a star that carries messages.

The entry on Tian Shang just before it marks that star as Water too. The line gives the star's element and the image behind its name; it does not say where the star sits on a chart. The position comes from another verse, which the next section works out in branches.

Five steps along the palaces, five places back along the branches

The Health palace is sixth in the order: five steps on from Life, passing Siblings, Partner, Children and Wealth on the way. Around the chart the palace names and the branches travel in opposite directions, so the same spot is five places back in branches, which is also seven places forward.

So seven places ahead of the Life branch is the branch of Tian Shi; the full lookup is the twelve-row table in the Tian Shang article, and what the Health palace itself covers is in the Health palace. Tian Shi being in this palace is the result of the placing rule and is the same on every chart.

The Zhongzhou method swaps the two stars

This site always charts with the common San He method; the iztro engine it runs on also offers a Zhongzhou option, which other software may follow. Per the site's chart notes, the two share the same main-star layout and the differences fall on minor stars, Tian Shang and Tian Shi among them. Under San He, Tian Shi is always in Health. The Zhongzhou verse separates two cases: yang men and yin women stay as they are, while yin men and yang women have the two stars swapped, Tian Shi in Friends and Tian Shang in Health. The rule is taken from the comment on Zhongzhou in the iztro 2.6.0 source, and I checked it on eight charts: two years, two sexes and two methods.

So the same person can have Tian Shi move from the Health palace to the Friends palace by changing the method. When two programs' charts are compared, this is one of the first causes to rule out.

When the decade reaches the Health palace

The book speaks of Tian Shi almost entirely in the setting of entering a limit, so it is worth knowing when a decade enters the palace holding it. The ages of the Health-palace decade vary with the bureau and the direction of the decades:

These are decades of the palace and follow the palace. Under Zhongzhou, if a yin man's or yang woman's Tian Shi has moved to Friends, the Friends decade is the one to look at, and the Friends and Health decades are exactly twenty years apart.

Beyond position: three checks before reading

1. 1

   Confirm the placing method

   See whether the chart is marked San He or Zhongzhou; when comparing charts both must use the same one.

2. 2

   Then count seven

   Seven places ahead of the Life branch is the branch of Tian Shi under the default method.

3. 3

   Last, read the palace name

   By default it is the Health palace; for yin men and yang women under Zhongzhou, look at the Friends palace instead.

The star on the far side of Travel is Tian Shang; decades and years are read in layers in natal, decade and annual layers; and more of what separates the two placing methods among minor stars starts from auxiliary, malefic and minor stars.