Tian-Ren

The one of the nine that can carry the most. Honest, plain-dealing, and willing to take on the hard and thankless job without complaining about either the labour or the blame. What that buys is steadiness; what it costs is speed — at the moment something ought to be done, this star is usually still bearing it. Steady and slow are not two facts about this star but one, seen from either side.

• People and roles: the plain honest sort, the salaried employee holding down a post, the finance director who looks after the money — and also people in business, and people with family assets behind them.
• Land and farming: when the indicator falls on this star, the matter tends to touch land, soil or agriculture.
• The other end: conservative, stubborn, short on flexibility, not bold enough for anything large, and easily led along by somebody else.
• The body and objects: the nose, the spleen and the stomach; tables and chairs, quilts — the solid, unglamorous furniture a household actually lives on.

"Mildly auspicious" is a default reading, not a verdict. The steadiness and the slowness are one property rather than two, so the matter being asked about is what decides whether it counts this time as dependable or as dragging its feet.

Nature

Whatever has been agreed to gets done, and a good deal that was never agreed to gets quietly picked up as well. Order and clear rules suit the person involved; the calm on the surface has been carrying a load for a long time.

Style

No short cuts, and whatever is handed over gets followed through to the end. What counts is whether the process was actually completed and whether the thing actually landed. Under pressure the first instinct is to hold, not to call a stop.

Strength

Endurance over time. Systems, operations, and keeping a machine turning day after day are all strengths of the person involved; however hard the environment presses, the output stays at the same level.

Impression

The impression comes down to one word: steady. Not showy and not restless. Not the one out at the front either, but the column that does not come down — which is why other people put the important things into their hands.

Pitfall

Responsibility gets taken on wholesale. Needs go unsaid, refusal comes hard, and holding to the old method too long is how steady turns into stuck.

At the feng shui layer the nine stars supply two lists, objects and places. What answers to Tian-Ren is the thick, the solid, and the kind of thing that holds a weight down.

• Character: weighty, substantial and dependable, governing good faith and responsibility.
• Objects: tables and chairs, quilts, stone, walls, land, farmland, graveyards and porcelain, along with anything in earth yellow.
• Places: roads, thresholds, ancestral halls, temples, houses, warehouses and financial centres; and in the landscape, low hills, mountain ranges and high peaks.

What this column gives is objects and landforms, not a table of rooms. Which room of a house belongs to whom sits at the level of the gates and the stems.