The Six Spirits are a rotating row of labels. The day stem chooses the label on line 1; the remaining five follow in a fixed order up to line 6.

The fixed rotation is:

Azure Dragon → Vermilion Bird → Hooking Array → Soaring Serpent → White Tiger → Black Tortoise → repeat

Find the line-1 start

Day stemLabel on line 1
Jia or YiAzure Dragon
Bing or DingVermilion Bird
WuHooking Array
JiSoaring Serpent
Geng or XinWhite Tiger
Ren or GuiBlack Tortoise

After choosing the start, rotate forward one label per line. Every completed chart must contain each label exactly once.

Worked assignment: Case 00035

Case 00035 uses a Ji-Mao day. The Ji stem starts with Soaring Serpent:

Line, bottom-to-topSix-Spirit label
1Soaring Serpent
2White Tiger
3Black Tortoise
4Azure Dragon
5Vermilion Bird
6Hooking Array

This reproduces a visible field of the chart. It does not let a Spirit label overturn palace, Najia, line role, World/Response, motion, or calendar mechanics.

Full rotation check

Use one representative from each start group:

Day stemLines 1 → 6
JiaAzure Dragon, Vermilion Bird, Hooking Array, Soaring Serpent, White Tiger, Black Tortoise
BingVermilion Bird, Hooking Array, Soaring Serpent, White Tiger, Black Tortoise, Azure Dragon
WuHooking Array, Soaring Serpent, White Tiger, Black Tortoise, Azure Dragon, Vermilion Bird
JiSoaring Serpent, White Tiger, Black Tortoise, Azure Dragon, Vermilion Bird, Hooking Array
GengWhite Tiger, Black Tortoise, Azure Dragon, Vermilion Bird, Hooking Array, Soaring Serpent
RenBlack Tortoise, Azure Dragon, Vermilion Bird, Hooking Array, Soaring Serpent, White Tiger

Yi matches Jia, Ding matches Bing, Xin matches Geng, and Gui matches Ren.

Stopping condition

This lesson assigns labels only. Do not turn a label into an event, personality, danger statement, or independent judgment. If two learners use the same day stem, their six-label rows must match before either discusses interpretation.

Source note

The complete start table covers all ten day stems, and the six-row rotation makes each assignment reproducible. Interpretive weight is deliberately outside this lesson.

Next: Continue to Act 3: The Calendar and add time-dependent fields to the completed skeleton.