Zhen Palace

The nine palaces are the ground layer of a chart — what the terrain is worth to the question being asked: the environment, the living space, the compass direction, and the part of the body that answers to it. Zhen takes due East and belongs to Wood. Its trigram is solid at the base with two broken lines above it, an open bowl facing the sky. The image it borrows is thunder: the sound arrives before anything else does, it arrives fast, and it arrives without warning. So this is the palace of roads and stations and crowds, of engines and instruments and everything else that moves or makes a noise. And what it reports is that something has started — not whether the something is any good.

• Places and settings: anywhere that moves, sounds or fills with people — main roads, airports, stations, car parks, busy commercial streets and food markets. Also spaces built around sound: concert halls, instrument shops, broadcasting stations, dance halls and clubs. And the open country in spring, farmland and forest.
• People and matters: the eldest son, and young people generally. People whose work is speed — drivers, pilots, train crew, athletes. People whose work is sound — musicians, good talkers, public speakers, and those who like passing news along. Soldiers, police and judges belong here too, for the authority they carry.
• Body: the feet and legs, the liver, the nerves and sinews. The left flank and the left shoulder and arm are Zhen as well.
• State of things: a sudden start, a situation prised open. What Zhen marks is that the thing has arrived, not that the thing is welcome.

Sudden and unexpected are statements about speed and timing, not about fortune. The same Zhen Palace reads one way on a question about an opportunity and quite another on a question about an upset. What decides the reading is the matter being asked about, not the palace.

Nature

Quick to notice and quick to decide, with an unusual sensitivity to anything changing. A new opening lights the person involved up on sight, and standing still is the condition they can least tolerate. Bold on the surface; underneath, what is really feared is missing the moment.

Style

Think of it, do it — and use the force of that first move to break a deadlock open. Long waits are not tolerated well and feedback is wanted straight away. When the environment goes quiet, the person involved gets restless rather than relaxed.

Strength

Starting power, and the burst of force that goes with it. In a mess, the person involved is the first to get the situation propped open, and they are good at setting a tempo and waking a whole group up. Founding something, opening new ground and working at the front line are the roles that fit — and when the timing is under control, the reach is considerable.

Impression

Fast to react, and carrying enough drive that a room picks up the pace simply because the person involved has walked into it. Say it and do it: sometimes that speed is dazzling, sometimes nobody else can keep up with it. A strong first impression, and a settling-in period that takes a while.

Pitfall

One hard charge and everything scatters. The start is fierce and nothing follows it up, feeling and action come out of step, and haste means the details get skipped. What that adds up to is the same ground covered again and again, with the effort spent for nothing.

For a dwelling, this palace supplies two things: what the whole building looks like when the Wood of Zhen is strong and when it is weak, and which kinds of place out in the surrounding environment belong to Zhen.

• When the energy is strong: the building is tall and imposing, often a high block or a large walled compound.
• When the energy is weak: the yard is cramped and the building low, with the roads around it sunken and in poor repair.
• Places in the wider environment that belong to Zhen: factories, stations, airports, launch sites, fairgrounds, busy commercial streets, battlefields; broadcasting stations, instrument shops, dance halls and clubs and anywhere else built around sound; and forest and thickly growing vegetation.

The strong-and-weak description is a verdict on the whole building rather than on any one room, and the list of places is a category of outdoor environment. At the level of the nine palaces there is still no table saying which room of a house each palace answers to.

When the indicator lands in this palace, the direction you take is East. This mapping is fixed and does not vary by matter.