North (坎)

The direction of water in the classical scheme — associated with depth, winter and the middle son. North is the water direction in the Eight Trigrams scheme (坎 Kan). It is read as the direction of stillness and storage, and in the classical texts it is the one most associated with the career or life-path aspect of the Eight Mansions method.

Directions are read as a set, not one at a time. The direction of water in the classical scheme — associated with depth, winter and the middle son. North is the direction where the Eight Mansions and Flying Stars methods disagree most visibly, which is why the classical sources insist on stating which method is in use before a direction is interpreted.

In the 后天八卦 (Later Heaven) arrangement Kan sits at north. The tradition reads the direction through its element — water — and therefore through the qualities water carries: downward, gathering, and dark. Directions are never read alone; the classical method reads them against the facing of the building. It is grouped under Water (水) in the five-element system.