In the Dragon Gate formula a direction has no fixed quality of its own. Water arriving from the north — the 坎 palace, 337.5° to 22.5° — is read by the position the north holds in the house’s formation, and that position depends on the palace the house sits in. The same stream from the north is welcome at one house and the worst case at another.
The north, house by house
Sitting 坤 (southwest): the north is 先天 (and 地刑) — water arriving is welcome, water leaving harmful. Sitting 兌 (west): 後天 — arriving welcome, leaving harmful. Sitting 乾 (northwest): 輔卦 — arriving read as helpful, leaving harmful. Sitting 艮 (northeast): 賓, and sitting 震 (east): 客 — arriving water favours outsiders to the household’s line; leaving is harmless. Sitting 巽 (southeast): 天劫 — the preferred exit, and the worst place for water to arrive from. Sitting 離 (south): 案劫, the front — water should leave through it, never strike in. Sitting 坎: the north is the house’s own back and is not read.
Where north water is welcome, and where it is not
Three houses want water arriving from the north: those sitting in 坤, 兌 and 乾. Two want water leaving toward it: the house sitting in 巽, for which the north is 天劫, and the house sitting in 離, which faces north. For the houses sitting in 艮 and 震, northern water favours outsiders — tenants, in-laws — over the household’s own line. So "is water from the north good?" has no answer until you know which way the house sits.
Reading it on the ground
Water "from the north" means water whose flow comes toward the house from that direction — a stream, a slope, a drain or gutter running toward the building from the north. Water sitting to the north without flowing toward or away from the house has no direction to read. KAXANTA shows which position the north holds for your house, with the others, from the house facing saved in Settings.
References
Canonical sources that inform this guide.
- 论龙门八局系水法 (华夏大易学社) · WEBSITE
- 三元水法龙门八大局 (简书) · WEBSITE
- Bagua (Eight Trigrams) · WIKIPEDIA
- Feng shui · WIKIPEDIA