Qi Men Dun Jia maps the energy of this exact moment onto nine palaces (the Nine Palaces of the Luo Shu). Each palace stacks four layers of symbols: Eight Deities (top-left, subconscious/hidden support) · Nine Stars (timing/temperament backdrop) · Eight Gates (the large colored character in the center, human action) · Heaven/Earth Stems (top-right, the actors in the matter). Each palace also has its own trigram and direction (bottom-left).
Above is a real example chart — use it to match the symbols described below.
The Eight Gates are colored by their element: Rest Gate · Water (blue) · Life Gate / Death Gate · Earth (ochre) · Injury Gate / Block Gate · Wood (green) · Scenic Gate · Fire (vermillion) · Alarm Gate / Open Gate · Metal (gold). No gate is inherently good or bad — it depends on which palace it lands in and what it's paired with, so don't panic just because you see “Death Gate” — it also governs stability and storing up.
Void (空亡) — this palace's matter isn't solid yet, the timing hasn't arrived; the usual remedy is to wait for the day it gets “filled”.
Horse (驛馬) — a signal of movement: travel, change, things moving fast.
Tomb (入墓) — energy is covered and can't express itself; it can only be “clashed” open, not filled.
Punishment (擊刑) — a sign of obstruction/damage; traditionally resolved through “harmony” combinations.
Gate-clash / Palace-clash — the gate and palace elements conflict: gate-overcomes-palace = action and environment are at odds (heavier); palace-overcomes-gate = the environment presses on you (lighter, adjust your mindset).
The small colored bar is a pattern (a named combination of the ten stems), green = auspicious / red = inauspicious / blue = neutral — the reading text will tell you which pattern is at play for your matter.
Every reading follows the same skeleton: verdict (auspicious/inauspicious, stated up front) → current situation (the chart translated into your circumstances) → key point (the single most important judgment) → strategy (remove what's working against you / borrow strength to reinforce / shift timing or direction) → direction and timing (which way to move, which day to act, often with a specific calendar date). Inauspicious isn't a sentence — inauspicious means change is needed, and the strategy given is exactly how to make that change.
Casting a chart is always free, and signing in for free shows you the complete nine-palace chart. Credits (☯) are only spent on deep readings: full natal chart reading … · deep event reading … · follow-up on the same chart … · follow-up with a new chart …. Sign up and get … free. When you follow up, anything the existing chart can answer is answered immediately; if you're asking about a new matter or new timing, the system quotes the price first and only casts a new chart once you confirm.
Don't know your birth hour? Check “hour unknown” when casting your natal chart — it estimates using midday; the parts that don't depend on the hour (life palace, decade cycles, etc.) stay accurate, and anything hour-dependent is marked as reference only.
Why can I enter a birth year for an event question? Entering it lets your yearly stem serve as the “querent” indicator, making the chart more personal to you; if left blank, the day stem represents the person asking.
Can I ask about the same matter repeatedly? One matter, one chart. Details on the same chart (the other party's state of mind / direction / timing) are dug into via “follow-up”; a new chart is only cast when the matter or your plan changes.
Where does the interpretation come from? The chart is cast faithfully using the school's method; the reading only translates symbolic facts from the classical texts — it doesn't make things up.