Each the 8 Trigrams expresses patterns of movement and change.

Feng Shui sees the whole of creation as made up of the 3 Primes Heaven, Man and Earth. Heaven and Earth’s influences both affect Man or humankind. Man lives on Earth below Heaven and is influenced by both Heaven and Earth from the moment he is born.

Each trigram expresses patterns of movement and change. Each has been used extensively in the fields of philosophy, astrology, Chinese traditional medicine, numerology, the martial arts, mathematics, and, of course, feng shui. In feng shui, the movement, change, and interactions of qi, together with the elements of time and space, determine your state of being. Coupled with all your other Feng Shui Tools, the 8 trigrams and their associations will help you to enhance good qi and correct bad qi.

The dynamic interplay of yin and yang, a family of eight trigrams is born. Take a look at the image above. Yang (male) is represented by a solid line, and Yin (female) by a broken line. Individually, Yang and Yin each produce two offspring. Notice the bottom line corresponds to the “parent” Yang or Yin line in question. The addition of the top Yang or Yin line results in the production of four unique pairs or bigrams. Each of the four bigrams produces two trigrams each, the bottom two lines identical to the parent pair. The addition of the top yang or yin line distinguishes the trigram from its “sibling.”

Now let’s take a closer look at each Trigram and some of their properties.



Flying Star Number 1 • Name: Kan • Element: Water • Direction: North • Family Member: Middle Son

Flying Star Number 2 • Name: Kun • Element: Soft Earth • Direction: SouthWest • Family Member: Mother

Flying Star Number 3 • Name: Zhen • Element: Hard Wood • Direction: East • Family Member: Eldest Son

Flying Star Number 4 • Name: Xun • Element: Soft Wood • Direction: SouthEast • Family Member: Eldest Daughter

Flying Star Number 5 • Name: None # • Element: None # • Direction: Center • Family Member: None # # This star is assigned the properties of the governing period i.e 8

Flying Star Number 6 • Name: Qian • Element: Hard Metal • Direction: NorthWest • Family Member: Father

Flying Star Number 7 • Name: Dui • Element: Soft Metal • Direction: West • Family Member: Youngest Daughter

Flying Star Number 8 • Name: Gen • Element: Hard Earth • Direction: West • Family Member: Youngest Son

Flying Star Number 9 • Name: Li • Element: Fire • Direction: South • Family Member: Middle Daughter

Based on the Tai Chi symbol, trigrams are a universal symbol of natural balance and formed the foundations of Chinese philosophy, the I Ching and Feng Shui. These ancient symbols, first discovered by Fu Xi in 3300 BCE, contain great wisdom and incredibly advanced knowledge.

Individually, they teach us about important phenomena that affect life; collectively, they describe how nature works and show us how to live a naturally balanced life.

The eight trigrams can be arranged in two ways: Early Heaven (前天) or Later Heaven (后天). The Early Heaven is the unconditioned, celestial state, distinguished by oneness and true consciousness, when the Original Spirit is present, and the Later Heaven is the conditioned, human state, distinguished by multiplicty and discriminating concsiousness.

The trigrams Heaven ☰, Earth ☷, Fire ☲, and Water ☵ have multiple meanings. Understanding them is not simply a matter of gathering knowledge about them, but also requires that one sees their operation in oneself.