How to Read Your Home Map
Feng shui reads a home by where each family member sleeps. Each member has a trigram, and so does each zone; stacked together, the two make one of the sixty-four hexagrams, and the good or ill of the placement is read from that hexagram. The zones are measured from the center of the home, and each placement is read for career, health, marriage and children.
By Sheng Pin Kai·Last updated
How family members are ranked
- The Father is a married man, and the Mother is a married woman. A widow with children living at home is also the Mother.
- Sons and daughters are counted separately, oldest first, and only those unmarried and living at home count. The eldest such son is the Eldest son, then come the Second son and the Third son; daughters are counted the same way, as the Eldest daughter, the Second daughter and the Third daughter.
- For example, a family whose children are a boy, then a girl, then a boy has an Eldest son, an Eldest daughter and a Second son.
- When a son marries, he leaves the count and each younger brother moves up one place. Daughters move up the same way when an elder sister marries.
- A divorced daughter who returns home to live with her widowed mother still counts as a daughter.
The eight zones
The zones follow the Later Heaven arrangement (后天八卦) of the trigrams:
| Direction | Trigram |
|---|---|
| North | Water (坎) |
| Northeast | Mountain (艮) |
| East | Thunder (震) |
| Southeast | Wind (巽) |
| South | Fire (离) |
| Southwest | Earth (坤) |
| West | Lake (兑) |
| Northwest | Heaven (乾) |
What counts is which side of the center of the home each person sleeps on. The center is only the reference point for the zones and forms no placement of its own.
How a placement forms
Each family member also has a trigram:
| Member | Trigram |
|---|---|
| Father | Heaven |
| Mother | Earth |
| Eldest son | Thunder |
| Second son | Water |
| Third son | Mountain |
| Eldest daughter | Wind |
| Second daughter | Fire |
| Third daughter | Lake |
The person’s trigram sits on top and the zone’s trigram below, and together they make one hexagram. The Father (Heaven) sleeping in the South (Fire) puts Heaven over Fire, which makes Fellowship (天火同人). The Mother (Earth) sleeping in the South puts Earth over Fire, which makes Darkening of the Light (地火明夷).
What each placement is read for
Beyond career, health, marriage and children, each placement is read for what each annual phase adds or takes away. People born at the same time marry, win promotion and have children at different times, and some have daughters while others have sons; all of this shows in the placement they live in. Each zone page sets out its placements along these lines, for example the South zone.
Source: The Way of the Earth's Veins (天纪：地脉道)
A change in living situation often comes with a change of decade phase.
Your Four Pillars of Destiny (BaZi) chart marks when each one begins.