Qimen Three Wonders and Six Ceremonies: Reference

Ten stems, nine palaces: hiding Jia

There are ten stems but only nine cells on the earth plate. Qimen's solution is to take out Jia, the most honored stem (marshal, sovereign), which hides under six disguises; this is the origin of the name Dun Jia, "hiding Jia". The sixty-cycle splits into six decades, each headed by a Jia, and each head hides under one ceremony stem:

Mnemonic: zi–Wu, xu–Ji, shen–Geng, wu–Xin, chen–Ren, yin–Gui. So when you see Geng on the chart it is two things at once: Geng itself (the imagery of Geng Metal) and the Jia-Shen decade it hides.

The three wonders: Yi, Bing, Ding

• The names Sun, Moon, Star are symbolic, not astronomical correspondences.
• The three wonders are not unconditionally auspicious; it depends on the palace and the gate they meet. "A wonder obtaining the envoy" (wonder plus an auspicious gate) is what makes it very auspicious.
• Ding is one of the most common stand-ins for a person in Qimen (the Jade Maiden).

The six ceremonies

Geng deserves its own note: it is the "thief of the Zhi Fu" and the most important inauspicious stem in Qimen. Geng means obstruction, opponents, competition, delay and entanglement; wherever it lands, the resistance lies. Remember: seeing Geng usually means trouble.

Earth-plate order and a yang-dun ju 1 example

The nine stems are laid out in a fixed order, Wu Ji Geng Xin Ren Gui Ding Bing Yi; note that the three wonders run backwards. Wu is placed at the palace matching the ju number, then forward in yang dun and backward in yin dun.

Example: yang dun ju 1 (Wu starts at Kan 1 and runs forward). Check: Wu in Kan 1, Ji in Kun 2, Geng in Zhen 3, Xin in Xun 4, Ren in center 5, Gui in Qian 6, Ding in Dui 7, Bing in Gen 8, Yi in Li 9. As a nine-palace diagram (south at the top):