Tian-Fu

The most civil of the nine stars, with every thread of it landing on culture, education and examinations. It does not charge and it does not grab; the road it takes is instruction, assistance, and getting somebody else started on their way. The picture it leaves is of a figure standing alongside to point the way out — a guide, a teacher, a friend, a helper. And the good it does is the fine-work-done-slowly kind: right for raising something, for teaching, for making a thing solid, and not necessarily what to lean on when a matter is urgent.

• People and roles: the teacher, the form teacher, the tutor, the advocate — and also writers and poets, monks and nuns, and the carpenter and the tree planter.
• Learning and examinations: study, further training, assessment and the passing of documents all bring this star out; how well educated a person is falls under it too.
• The first impression: someone standing alongside to lead the way — a guide, a teacher, a friend, a helper.
• Body and objects: the eyebrows, the liver and the gallbladder; needles, thread, pens and letters — small things, fine and useful.

"Greatly auspicious" is a default reading, not a verdict. What it is good for leans towards fine work done slowly: suited to nurturing something, to teaching, to making a thing solid. For anything urgent and fast, this is not necessarily the star to rely on.

Nature

An explanation that does not hold together is physically uncomfortable to the person involved; how a thing came about has to be straightened out end to end before anything else can move. Real patience for principles and for systems, and no verdict at all while the evidence is still short.

Style

The route gets broken into steps before the work starts, and every step gets tested for whether it will hold. Never first out of the gate — what is relied on is being right. The messier a situation gets, the more the thread has to be drawn out before anything else happens.

Strength

Strong at both learning and understanding, able to pull scattered information into one coherent view, and to hand a whole group a direction along with the grounds for judging it.

Impression

Comes across as somebody who has thought about a great deal — no pressure applied, and what does get said carries weight. Usually found in the strategist's chair, and how deep it goes only shows after a long acquaintance.

Pitfall

Thought through too finely, and acted on too late. Waiting for certainty until the moment has gone by, shelving anything unresolved as a matter of course, and finishing at the level of paper.

At the feng shui layer each star gets two lists, one of objects and one of places. The Tian-Fu lists circle around growing things, writing materials, and the places where people are taught.

• Character: gentle, supportive and intelligent; it governs planning, documents, education and growth.
• Objects: trees, flowers and grass, vines, rope and cloth, and pens, letters, books, stationery, needle and thread — and anything green.
• Places: gardens and grassland, nurseries, vegetable plots, lawns and flower beds, and schools and temples.

The same sentence holds for all nine of the stars: what a star gives is an image and a place. The assignment of rooms does not sit at this layer — it belongs to the gates and the stems.