General concepts

Four Transformations (Si Hua)

Also known as: four transformationssi huasihuafour transformations zi weifour transformations zi wei dou shuzi wei four transformations四化化祿化禄化權化权化科化忌hua luhua quanhua kehua jihua lu hua quan hua ke hua jifour transformation starsfour transformations starsbirth year transformationsnatal transformationstransformation stars四化飛星flying starszi wei dou shu transformationsziwei si hua

The Four Transformations (四化, Si Hua) are four labels that Zi Wei Dou Shu attaches to four stars of the chart, chosen by the Heavenly Stem of the birth year: Hua Lu (化祿, abundance), Hua Quan (化權, authority), Hua Ke (化科, recognition) and Hua Ji (化忌, obstruction).

The Four Transformations (四化, Si Hua), literally "four changes", are a central device of Zi Wei Dou Shu. The stem of the birth year picks four stars of the chart, and each one receives a label that colours how the tradition reads it: Hua Lu (化祿), Hua Quan (化權), Hua Ke (化科) and Hua Ji (化忌). Hua Lu stands for abundance and flow, Hua Quan for authority and drive, Hua Ke for recognition and refinement, and Hua Ji for obstruction and attachment, a point where things catch. The labels belong to the star, and they travel with it into whichever palace it stands in. This entry describes how the tradition reads a chart. It is a symbolic system and a cultural tradition, not a science, and none of the four words is a verdict on anyone's life.

The choice depends only on the Heavenly Stem of the birth year, and the year here is the lunar year, which changes at the lunar New Year and not at Li Chun. Each of the ten stems has its own four stars, written in the order Lu, Quan, Ke, Ji. In the table that AstroSensus uses: 甲 Jia: Lian Zhen, Po Jun, Wu Qu, Tai Yang. 乙 Yi: Tian Ji, Tian Liang, Zi Wei, Tai Yin. 丙 Bing: Tian Tong, Tian Ji, Wen Chang, Lian Zhen. 丁 Ding: Tai Yin, Tian Tong, Tian Ji, Ju Men. 戊 Wu: Tan Lang, Tai Yin, You Bi, Tian Ji. 己 Ji: Wu Qu, Tan Lang, Tian Liang, Wen Qu. 庚 Geng: Tai Yang, Wu Qu, Tai Yin, Tian Tong. 辛 Xin: Ju Men, Tai Yang, Wen Qu, Wen Chang. 壬 Ren: Tian Liang, Zi Wei, Zuo Fu, Wu Qu. 癸 Gui: Po Jun, Ju Men, Tai Yin, Tan Lang. So in a 甲 year, for example, Lian Zhen carries Hua Lu and Tai Yang carries Hua Ji.

Schools do not agree on every row. Other schools assign some of these years differently, mainly the 庚, 戊 and 壬 years, and different books give different tables. For that reason AstroSensus names the table it used on the result, so the reading can be compared with a source that follows another convention. The default is the convention of the open-source library iztro.

Only the transformations of the birth year, the natal ones, are calculated. The flying stars (飛星), in which a palace's own stem sends the four transformations to other palaces, and the yearly transformations are not calculated. In the chart the labels sit on the stars in the palaces, next to their brightness grades. Because the stem of the year is also what gives each palace its stem by the "five tigers" rule, the same stem lies behind the table and behind the layout of the palaces.

The free Zi Wei Dou Shu calculator in AstroSensus shows the four stars with their labels. It needs no account, uses no AI and keeps the birth data only in the session. It does not write a reading of the transformations.