Flying Star Feng Shui, or Xuan Kong Fei Xing, is one of the most popular methods of Feng Shui in use today. It is also a relatively new style of classical Feng Shui, having achieved widespread popularity in the 20th century. Flying Stars is a system that will allow results to be felt quickly, but they are less potent that less dynamic forms of Feng Shui.
The Flying Star system of Feng Shui allows a practitioner to create a diagram that illustrates the patterns of Qi occupying a building, much like an astrological chart can show the influences upon a person. Advanced practitioners can even utilize the information in this chart to predict events that are likely to happen to the property's residents and obtain details about the occupants that the practitioner had no prior knowledge of.
Flying Star Feng Shui is a subset of Xuan Kong Feng Shui, which is itself a subset of the San Yuan school of Feng Shui. The name "Xuan Kong" means "mysterious and void".
A scholar during the late Ming and early Qing Dynasties who wrote extensively about Xuan Kong was named Jiang Da Hong. He wrote such texts as Earth Discern Truth Study (Di Li Bian Zheng), Profound Returning Records (Gui Hou Lu), Heavenly Yuan Five Songs (Tian Yuan Wu Ge), Heavenly Yuan Principles (Tian Yuan Yu Yi), Old Mirror Song (Gu Jing Ge) and Water Dragon Classics (Shui Long Jing). Although prolific, Jiang Da Hong tended to write his texts in cryptic language that was hard to decipher.
In the late Qing Dynasty, an Imperial Scholar named Zhang Zhong Shan added commentaries to Jiang's works and thus information about Xuan Kong Feng Shui became more accessible. Zhang then founded his own school, called Wu Chang Pai. Many masters came from this school, including Tan Yang Wu, one of the first scholar-practitioners of Xuan Kong Fei Xing. Tan Yang Wu removed many superfluous parts of the Xuan Kong theories of the time, and supported his efforts with case studies. Some of his works include Da San Yuan Xuan Kong Lu and Da San Yuan Xuan Kong Shi Yan, both of which were published in the early 1920s. Around this same time, another scholar named Shen Zhu Ren took an interest in Xuan Kong. He broke with the tradition of using flowery, poetic and cryptic language when writing about Xuan Kong, and authored a book called "Mr. Shen's Study of Xuan Kong", or Shen Shi Xuan Kong Xue. This work organized, complied and interpreted the works of Zhang Zhong Shan into an easy-to-understand format. Shen Zhu Ren was also credited with discovering the Flying Star method during his studies of Zhang's work. He stripped out a lot of unnecessary concepts, simplifying Xuan Kong Feng Shui. His book, published in the early 1930's, remains one fo the most widely referenced texts on Xuan Kong Fei Xing to date.
The name "San Yuan" literally means "Three Cycles", which is an indication of its focus. The San Yuan system takes into account time, location and direction in its application. The three Cycles referred to in the name last 60 years each, so the collection of three cycles lasts for 180 years. Each 180 year Great Cycle is divided into nine, 20-year Periods and into an Upper Cycle, Middle Cycle and Lower Cycle of 60 years each. The effects of Qi undergo a major transformation every time the Period changes, so it is necessary to alter one's Feng Shui to keep up with the prevailing trends. This is different from the San He approach to Feng Shui, which acknowledges the effects of time upon the quality of Qi, but attempts to overcome such changes through superior landform choices.
It is believed that the time span of the Cycles correlates to the time that elapses between relative alignments of the planets Jupiter and Saturn.
We are currently living in the eighth Period of the Lower Cycle of the current 180-year Great Cycle. In the year 2024, the Period will shift to 9 and the effects of the bodies of Qi will shift in a major way. You can refer to the below chart to see when each Period in the current Great Cycle began:
|
Cycle |
Period |
Years |
Trigram |
|
Upper Cycle |
Period 1 |
1864 – 1883 |
Kan |
|
Period 2 |
1884 – 1903 |
Kun |
|
|
Period 3 |
1904 – 1923 |
Zhen |
|
|
Middle Cycle |
Period 4 |
1924 – 1943 |
Xun |
|
Period 5 |
1944 – 1963 |
--- |
|
|
Period 6 |
1964 – 1983 |
Qian |
|
|
Lower Cycle |
Period 7 |
1984 – 2003 |
Dui |
|
Period 8 |
2004 – 2023 |
Gen |
|
|
Period 9 |
2024 – 2043 |
Li |
The Xuan Kong Fei Xing system integrates all of the principles covered in these lessons so far, so please ensure that you have a good understanding of the fundamentals before continuing. In particular, you need to understand the Five Phases and the interactions between them; the Eight Trigrams; the Luo Shu; and the 24 Mountains.
