All the traditions · Japanese · Nine Star Ki
Japanese · Nine Star Ki
Nine stars on the Lo Shu square: a principal star from the year, a character star from the month, and the house each year puts you in.
The Japanese Lo Shu
Nine Star Ki
Nine Star Ki, kyūsei kigaku, is the Japanese reading of the Lo Shu magic square: nine stars, one for each cell, and a birth takes its principal star from the year and its character star from the month. The year turns at Lichun, as in BaZi, so a January birth belongs to the year before. The stars carry an element, a colour and a trigram: Six White Metal, Nine Purple Fire, and so on.
The part people actually use is the cycle: each year the stars move one step round the square, and the cell your star stands in that year is read as the house you are passing through — winter and rest in the house of 1, visibility in 3, the centre and its upheavals in 5, harvest in 7, exposure in 9. Nine houses in nine years, then round again, with a monthly square inside it.
In the app, the Nine Star chart shows your two stars, this year's square with yours marked, and the nine-year cycle with what each house means.
What the app draws for it
Nine Star Ki · 1
Nine Star Ki — Principal and month stars, this year's square, and the nine-year cycle of houses.
Western Modern
The tropical zodiac with quadrant houses: the psychological tradition most of this century is written in.
Vedic · Jyotiṣa
The sidereal zodiac on the Lahiri ayanamsha, read in whole signs.
Western Traditional
Hellenistic and medieval judgement: sect, the five dignities, and the timing those feed. Seven planets, whole signs.
Chinese · BaZi
The Four Pillars — Saju (사주) in Korea, Shichū Suimei in Japan. Not planetary at all: a sexagenary calendar whose only astronomy is the Sun crossing each fifteenth degree.
Uranian · Cosmobiology
The Hamburg school: midpoints on a 90° dial rather than aspects on a wheel.
Mayan · Tzolk'in
The counts of days: thirteen numbers against twenty signs, the Haab, the Long Count. No planets at all, and the hour never enters into it.
Burmese · Mahabote
The little key: seven planets and Rahu in seven houses, from the weekday of birth and the Burmese year. No sky at all.