Meaning
Five Yellow Earth is the centre of the square. The Han ritual text that first spells out the arrangement already puts five in the middle row, and the old verse of the square, in 甄鸞's sixth-century commentary, ends "五居中央": five dwells in the centre. It has no trigram, no direction and no place in the trigram family; in Zheng Xuan's commentary the spirit Taiyi rests in the centre halfway through its round of the palaces.
Japanese practitioners read a person whose year star is 五黄 as forceful and commanding, a natural leader, and some writers call it the emperor's star (帝王の星): a name for a character. Our own text calls it the centre of the square: central, powerful and magnetic, a natural authority drawn to extremes and to constant change, with extremes, control and isolation as the shadow side. The Kushi line calls the number 5 Soil and gives it balance and transition rather than a season, the pivot between rising and falling.
The direction and the person
五黄 has a second life on the boards. On a year, month or day board, the direction where 五黄 stands is the 五黄殺, which the tradition counts the gravest direction of the period, and the direction opposite it is the 暗剣殺; practitioners avoid moving toward either. Those are readings of a direction for everyone, in a given year, month or day.
They are not readings of people born under 五黄. English feng shui pages and some Japanese popular pages carry the direction's reputation over to the birth star and call 五黄 people dangerous or frightening; the Japanese character readings do not, and neither do we. By the same definitions, a 五黄 person's own 本命殺, the direction where their year star stands, always coincides with the 五黄殺, so on every board their personal killing direction is the one the tradition already marks for everyone.
On the boards
五黄 is the star of the solar years 1986, 1995, 2004, 2013 and 2022, each from 立春. In a 五黄 year the first solar month has the star 二黒, so a 五黄 person born in the 申 month, from 立秋 in early August to 白露 in early September, has 五黄 as their month star as well. That centre case is the one place where some Japanese tables bring in gender, moving the inclination to 兌宮 for men and 乾宮 for women; another table differs and one school reads the centre as it is, as we do.
With any other month star in the centre, a 五黄 year star lands in 離宮 (month star 1), 艮宮 (2), 兌宮 (3), 乾宮 (4), 巽宮 (6), 震宮 (7), 坤宮 (8) or 坎宮 (9).
The centre is the fifth house of the nine-step rhythm, which the tradition reads as the turning phase, a time to take stock. A person whose year star stands in the centre of a board is the one the tradition calls blocked in all eight directions, 八方塞がり. For a 五黄 person the tradition counts auspicious the places of 九紫, whose Fire generates Earth (生気); of 二黒 and 八白, the other Earth stars (比和); and of 六白 and 七赤, the Metal that Earth generates (退気). We show these as readings and advise no journey.
Names
The Japanese name reads goō dosei: 五 five, 黄 yellow, 土 earth, 星 star. Traditional Chinese writes the colour 黃, so the Chinese form is 五黃土星; Chinese feng shui also calls it 五黃廉貞星, after 廉貞, the fifth star of the Northern Dipper in the 五行大義. No hexagram belongs to it, since the centre has no trigram to double.
Correspondences
Each item with how it stands: “sourced” is in the work cited, “our construction” is EsoTerrier’s own, and “disputed” means the sources disagree.
- Place in the Japanese table
- The centre, which the Japanese Wikipedia table marks 太極, the Great Ultimate sourced
- The Kushi line's phase
- Balance and transition, under the name 5 Soil, with no season or hour sourced
- Character taught in Japan
- Forceful and commanding, a born leader; some writers call it the emperor's star (帝王の星) sourced
- Chinese Dipper name
- 廉貞, the fifth star of the Northern Dipper; a name only here sourced
- Our one-line image
- The centre of the square our construction
- Our reading of its house
- The turning phase, read as a time to take stock our construction
- The centre case of the inclination
- Some tables move it by gender for 五黄 alone (兌宮 for men, 乾宮 for women); others do not disputed
How the schools read it
- Japanese 気学
- Forceful, commanding and enduring; some writers call 五黄 the emperor's star, a name for a character.
- The Kushi line
- "5 Soil": balance and transition, the pivot between rising and falling.
- Chinese feng shui (Xuan Kong)
- Names the number 五黃廉貞星 and reads it for the sectors of a building over time; those readings are not about people and are not shown here.
- Eight Mansions feng shui
- Its Kua number has no 5: a 5 becomes 2 for men and 8 for women. That gendered rule belongs to the Kua number, not to the year star.
- EsoTerrier
- The centre of the square: central, powerful and magnetic, drawn to extremes and to change, with extremes, control and isolation as the shadow side.
Claims about it
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A person born under Five Yellow Earth is dangerous or ill-starred, because 五黄 is the worst star of the boards.
disputedWhat the record shows: Two different things are run together. The 五黄殺 is the direction where 五黄 stands on a board, the gravest of the period for everyone in the tradition's reading; the birth star 五黄 is read as a forceful character. We never describe a person by the direction's reading.
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A 五黄 year star becomes 2 for men and 8 for women.
falseWhat the record shows: That is the rule of the Kua number in Eight Mansions feng shui. In 九星気学 the year star is 五黄 for everyone born in its year.
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Moving toward the 五黄殺 direction harms a person.
unverifiedWhat the record shows: The tradition counts it the gravest direction of the period, and practitioners avoid it.
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A 五黄 person whose month star is also 五黄 takes an inclination by a fixed table.
disputedWhat the record shows: Two tables circulate, one of them split by gender, and another school reads the centre as it is. We report 中宮傾斜.
