The four transformations of Zi Wei Dou Shu — Hua Lu, Hua Quan, Hua Ke and Hua Ji — are derived from each palace's heavenly stem rather than being stars in their own right. This article explains what they mark, how the San He and Fei Xing schools use them differently, and why Hua Ji is not bad luck.
The twelve palaces are the fixed framework of a Zi Wei Dou Shu chart, with the Life Palace as the starting point. This article explains how the other eleven map onto different areas of life, why a palace is read through its relations with San Fang Si Zheng rather than on its own, and why an empty palace is not a gap in a person's fate.
Fate calculation keeps time in three layers: the ten-year major fortune cycle, the annual fortune that turns over each year, and Da Xian in Zi Wei Dou Shu. This article explains how the starting point of a cycle is derived from the birth moment and the solar terms, and why the saying that a changeover year brings major events is mostly narrative told after the fact.
A single birth time produces a BaZi chart and a Zi Wei Dou Shu chart, and the two are often mistaken for two contradictory answers. This article sets out what each system cuts, three places where they most often corroborate each other, and three misreadings to avoid.
