Luo Shu, the magic square, and the Flying Star chart

The Flying Star feng shui chart looks mysterious with all the different numbers. It is actually closely related to the ancient Chinese diagrams of Luo Shu, or the book of the Luo River. The He Tu, or the River Diagram, is another map or diagram similar to the Luo Shu. They both give the principal rules of how the 9 Flying Stars work.

The Origin

The legendary story is that both He Tu and Luo Shu come from mythical creatures emerging from the rivers. One is a turtle with a diagram marked on the back shell, and the other is a dragon-horse carrying a unique pattern. We can not verify the real origin of these 2 charts, but they are the basis of Chinese metaphysics, including Feng Shui practice.

The He Tu and Luo Shu charts

The following 2 diagrams, maps, or patterns show the Luo Shu and He Tu. It looks like random dots with connecting lines, but the relationship between the black and white dots is very important.

First, each group of dots shows a specific number. Number 5 is in the center, 1 is at the bottom of the map, and 9 is at the top. Each number has a related direction. In the ancient Chinese map, the North is at the bottom and the South is on the top, the east is on the left, and the west is on the right side of the map. So we have number 1 related to the North, number 9 related to the South, and so on.

Luo Shu, the magic square

When we translate all the dots into numbers and put them in the right direction, we have the magic square or the 9 halls (palaces) diagram. See the chart below.

You can add the 3 numbers horizontally, vertically, or diagonally. They all add up to 15. If we don’t count the center number 5, they all add up to 10 in any direction. It is mathematically interesting and intriguing.

All the odd numbers or Yang numbers (the empty circles) are in the middle cross (North, South, East, West, and Center), while all the even numbers or Yin numbers (the solid circles from the Luo Shu) are at the 4 corners.

The Bagua or the eight trigrams on top of the Luo Shu square

The Bagua or the eight trigrams are composed of the Yin line (broken line) and the Yang line (unbroken line). This is often combined with the magic Luo Shu square. Since the Bagua is the basis of the I-Ching, the book of change, you can find a lot of reference meanings in this chart. You can find each direction or number corresponding to the five elements, the family members, body organs, seasons, and so on.

That is why the simple Luo Shu and He Tu charts can be very complicated.

The flying direction of the 9 flying stars

The Luo Shu square provides the basic flying direction of the 9 Flying Stars in the Flying Star Feng Shui. The first changing star is in the center. Once we have the center star number, we can find the remaining 8 numbers and their directions.

The basic rule is to follow the order of the increasing numbers in the Luo Shu chart. The center (5) is the starting point, then fly to Northwest (6), west (7), Northeast (8), South (9), North (1), Southwest (2), East (3), Southeast (4), and then back to the center (5). This is the forward flying direction.

For example, the star 6 flies to the center during period 6, and then number 7 will be in the Northwest, number 8 will be in the West, number 9 will be in the Northeast, and so on. Now we have the Period 6 Feng Shui chart.

The reversed flying star order

In some situations, the stars are flying in reverse instead of forward. In that case, we still follow the same direction of flying, but the star number will decrease instead of increase.

For example, when the central star is 9 and the stars are flying in reverse, the next star is still Northwest, but instead of number 1, it is number 8, then number 7 in the West, number 6 in the Northwest, and so on. See the chart below.

That is a very basic rule for the Flying Star chart. There are many other rules for forwarding flying and reverse flying. That is for discussion at another time.