Feng Shui (风水, 'wind and water') is a 3,000-year-old Chinese practice of arranging space to harmonize with the flow of qi (energy). One of its most precise schools is Xuan Kong Flying Star (玄空飞星), which uses a property's exact direction and the current 20-year period to map auspicious and inauspicious zones.
Feng Shui rests on three foundations: direction, time, and environment.
Direction matters because each of the 24 compass mountains carries different energy. Time matters because a 180-year grand cycle is divided into nine 20-year periods, each with its own ruling star. Environment matters because nearby water, roads, and structures shape how energy flows.
A traditional Luo Pan (compass) divides the circle into 24 sectors of 15° each — the 24 mountains. Each mountain combines a Heavenly Stem, Earthly Branch, or Trigram with a compass direction. Knowing your property's "sitting" and "facing" mountain is the first step of any reading.
In the Flying Star school, each 20-year period places a "period star" (运星) in the center of a 3×3 grid of nine palaces. From there it "flies" outward, while the Mountain Star (山星, linked to people and health) and Facing Star (向星, linked to wealth) are placed according to the property's direction. The result is a unique chart of 9 palaces × 3 stars.
A few degrees of compass error can change a mountain assignment and flip a reading. That's why professional readings measure orientation carefully — and why our photo-based system reads the exact orientation from your photo's compass data, with measurement uncertainty noted in every report.
Ba Zhai (八宅) pairs your personal "life trigram" (derived from your birth year and gender) with your house's trigram, revealing four auspicious and four inauspicious directions for you personally. Combined with Flying Star, it gives a complete picture of where to sleep, work, and receive guests.