The Health palace: sixth, a second look after Life

Sixth in the order, outside Life's four directions

Sixth in the order comes the Health palace (疾厄宫), traditionally the place for talk about the body and one's condition; Wealth sits before it and Travel after it.

Open the full-size diagram

Palace ring: Health is no. 6 in the order; opposite and trine palaces are computed from the order. Life, ringed in black, is five places away and not among its four directions. No branches are assigned.

Health stands near the bottom of the ring, a little to the right. From it a brown line crosses to Parents (the opposite palace), two purple lines reach Siblings and Property (the trine), and the black-ringed circle, Life, touches none of them. The counting rule for these sides is in three sides, four directions.

One more fact is fixed here: the minor star Tian Shi (天使) always sits in the Health palace. The rule for placing it is covered in the Travel palace, so it is not repeated.

Beyond Life, the book adds the Health palace

The "Liu Ji E" (六疾厄) section in juan 2 of the Zi Wei Dou Shu Quan Shu (紫微斗数全书) does not start with a star. Its first sentence says which two places to look at:

First see how the stars of the Life palace stand: fallen, joined by Yang Tuo Huo Ling Kong Jie, or with the Ji transformation (化忌) sitting in or shining on the palace. Then see how the stars of the Health palace stand: kind or harsh, bright or fallen, and judge from that.

The two lists treat the Health palace differently. In the male-chart list of juan 3 the order is body and Life first, then Wealth, Career and Travel, Wellbeing third, and then one more sentence, "also look at Property, servants and Health", followed by the remark that their good and ill "is worked out further on"; only after that come Parents, spouse and children. Juan 2 has a separate Health section, and inside it the Health palace becomes the second stop after Life.

Another part of juan 1 has an almost identical sentence, worded a little differently: juan 1 says "fallen, joined by Yang Tuo Huo Ling Jie Kong and Ji stars", while juan 2 writes "Ji stars" as the Ji transformation and adds "sitting or shining", and widens the Health side from "bright or fallen, good or ill" to "kind or harsh, bright or fallen". "Sitting or shining" is traditionally read as a star standing in the palace (sitting) or shining in from the opposite one (shining). How brightness is graded is set out in star brightness levels.

Twenty-one entries, and the words they use

There are twenty-one entries here, and each opens with a star name except the last, which is Dou Jun. Counting a few characters gives:

The book that writes about this palace uses "zai" (灾) and "ji" (疾) throughout, and never the character "bing" (病). "Zai" is the wider word, for trouble that befalls someone, while "ji" mostly sits behind another character to form a compound. The palace name Ji E (疾厄) shares ji with the entries, and its e (厄), "hardship", is close in meaning to zai.

Eight entries also start with an age: infancy (Tian Ji, Wu Qu, Lian Zhen), early childhood (Qi Sha, Po Jun, Tuo Luo) and youth (Ju Men, Lu Cun). So some lines in this section speak of one stretch of life, not of life in general.

Under one star, usually three slots

To read an entry in this section, look for three slots: what the star says on its own, what it says with auspicious stars, and what it says with malefics. The entries for Wen Chang, Wen Qu, Zuo Fu and You Bi are the plainest, with no body parts, so they make a fair way to see the pattern. The Wen Chang entry runs:

Wen Chang on its own: few mishaps. Joined by the six names Yang, Tuo, Huo, Ling, Kong and Jie: many mishaps. With the auspicious stars: no mishaps in a lifetime.

That string of six malefic names is written out six times in this section, once in the opening sentence about the two looks, and "auspicious stars" is written five times. Of the twenty-one entries thirteen contain "with" (sharing a palace with another star) and seventeen contain "joined by" (a star meeting it).

The You Bi entry has no slot for auspicious stars, which shows that not every entry has all three. A slot the book leaves empty is not one the reader can fill in.

Finding the Health palace by hand

1. 1

   Find Life, then count to the sixth place

   From Life along the order the sixth palace is Health, five branches back; Parents stands directly across, six places away.

2. 2

   Write the four directions down

   Parents is opposite, Property and Siblings are the trine, and Wealth and Travel are the neighbors. Life is not among them.

3. 3

   Name the slot when quoting

   Give the Health-section entry, the slot you are reading (alone, auspicious or malefic) and the star's brightness.

The box before it is Wealth; the box after it is Travel; and across the ring from Health stands Parents.