(Actually, it does get a bit more exciting than this)

The grid is just where we start.

      Think of the grid as an empty map.  What we are going to do is fill each square (referred to from here on in as a "palace") with three sets of numbers (referred to from here on in as "stars").  Once we have done that, we will superimpose this grid on a drawing of your house.  Or apartment.  Or business.  Or whatever.

      Actually, you'll be doing that.  I don't really know what your house looks like, so you won't find any floorplans on this site.  Just bear in mind that each palace in the above figure is going to tell you what part of your house the stars we are going to put in them are going to affect.

Stars?  But you said this wasn't astrology!

      Well... right.  It isn't astrology, and "stars" is perhaps an unfortunate - not to say possibly confusing - choice of terms.  The stars in Flying Star Feng Shui have nothing to do with real stars, planets, or anything else astronomical.  But "stars" are what the numbers we use in Flying Star are traditionally called, and I am not about to break with tradition.  Sorry.

Numbers?  But you said this wasn't numerology, either!

      Well... that's true, too.  We write numbers in the palaces, but they aren't really numbers.  Mostly we use numbers to represent the stars because they are convenient symbols that pretty much everyone is familiar with.  I suppose we could have used Chinese characters, but most westerners don't know how to read Chinese, will probably have trouble writing them correctly, and will also no doubt have difficulty remembering which is which.  It's just plain easier to use numbers, and so we will.

      The numbers/stars actually represent the trigrams of the I Ching (see!  I told you the I Ching was at the root of all this!).  If you don't know what trigrams are, don't worry about it.  It isn't necessary to know what they are to use them properly.  And we will represent them with numbers, which you probably do know, so it shouldn't be a problem.

      So... to recap:  the squares in the 3x3 Flying Star map are called "palaces", even though they aren't really nicely done-out castles, and the numbers we are going to write in them are called "stars", even though they aren't really stars or planets, and they aren't really numbers either.

      If you can keep all that straight, we're halfway there.  Well, OK, maybe not halfway, but we are certainly on the right path.

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