The Life palace and the Conception palace
Think of your four pillars as the four walls of a house. The tradition adds two small rooms off to the side: the Life palace and the Conception palace. They're extra pillars, worked out from the ones you already have.
The Life palace (命宮)
. It comes from your birth month and hour, and its stem follows from your Year pillar. The tradition reads it as your character deep down, a kind of compass for your whole life.
Because it needs the hour, it only appears when your birth time is known. Without it, the card says "Needs the hour".
The Conception palace (胎元)
Yuán. It's taken from your Month pillar: the stem one step forward, the branch three steps forward. If you were born in a 丙寅 month, your Conception palace is 丁巳.
It points, roughly, to the time of conception, some ten months before you were born. The tradition reads it as your roots, the seed you grew from. It doesn't need the hour.
Why methods vary
The schools don't agree, especially about the Life palace. Some count the months from the solar terms, others from the middle of each month or from the lunar calendar, and they don't all start counting from the same place. So a book or another app may give you a different Life palace, and that doesn't make either one wrong.
The app follows one published method, the same for everyone, and says so on the screen: "Methods for calculating the palaces vary between schools." The Conception palace rule is simpler, and most schools agree on it.
Where to see them
- On the Chart tab, open Symbols. The two palaces are at the top, each with its pillar and its Na Yin.
- In the full reading, the "Palaces, Na Yin and stars" section has a card for each, with an image and a few plain words.
How to take them
Read them like a footnote to your chart. The main story is still your Day Master, your Month pillar and the five elements. If the palace text rings true, enjoy it. If it doesn't, remember that the schools themselves disagree.