From Round to Square (and back)

For The Emperor's Teacher, scroll down (↓) to "Topics." It's the management book that will rock the world (and break the vase, as you will see). Click or paste the following link for a recent profile of the project: http://magazine.beloit.edu/?story_id=240813&issue_id=240610

A new post appears every day at 12:05* (CDT). There's more, though. Take a look at the right-hand side of the page for over four years of material (2,000 posts and growing) from Seinfeld and country music to every single day of the Chinese lunar calendar...translated. Look here ↓ and explore a little. It will take you all the way down the page...from round to square (and back again).
*Occasionally I will leave a long post up for thirty-six hours, and post a shorter entry at noon the next day.

Tuesday, September 8, 2015

China's Lunar Calendar 2015 09-08

Click here for the introduction to the Round and Square series "Calendars and Almanacs"  
⇦⇦⇦⇦⇦ From right to left: ⇦⇦⇦⇦⇦
9/12..................................................................................................................9/4
This is one in a never-ending series—following the movements of the calendar—in Round and Square perpetuity. It is today's date in the Chinese lunar calendar, along with basic translation and minimal interpretation. Unless you have been studying lunar calendars (and Chinese culture) for many years, you will likely find yourself asking "what does that mean?" I would caution that "it" doesn't "mean" any one thing. There are clusters of meaning, and they require patience, reflection, careful reading, and, well, a little bit of ethnographic fieldwork. The best place to start is the introduction to "Calendars and Almanacs" on this blog. I teach a semester-long course on this topic and, trust me, it takes a little bit of time to get used to the lunar calendar. Some of the material is readily accessible; some of it is impenetrable, even after many years.

As time goes on, I will link all of the sections to lengthy background essays. This will take a while. In the meantime, take a look, read the introduction, and think about all of the questions that emerge from even a quick look at the calendar.
Section One
Solar Calendar Date

二期星
Ninth Month, Eighth Day
Astral Period Two
Sunday, September 8
———————————————— 

Section Two
Beneficent Stars 
(top to bottom, right to left)
相三歲
日合支
Generational Branch
Three Linkages
Facing Days
—————————————————

Section Three
Auspicious Hours
(top to bottom, right to left
申辰子
中中中
酉己丑
凶凶
戌午寅
吉吉吉
亥未卯
吉吉
23:00-01:00 In-Between
01:00-03:00 Inauspicious
03:00-05:00 Auspicious
05:00-07:00 Inauspicious

07:00-09:00 In-Between
9:00-11:00 Inauspicious
11:00-13:00 Auspicious
13:00-15:00 Auspicious

15:00-17:00 In-Between
17:00-19:00 Auspicious
19:00-21:00 Auspicious
21:00-23:00 Auspicious

The hours above are for Hong Kong. It is up to you if you want to recalibrate or to assume that the cyclicality of the calendar "covers" the rest of the world. This is a greater interpretive challenge than you might think.
                             —————————————————

Section Four 
Activities to Avoid  
(top-to-bottom; right to left) 

除嫁理
服娶髮
Patterning Hair
Marriage Alliances
Discarding Clothing
—————————————————

Section Five 
Cosmological Information 
廿





滿
Twenty-Sixth Day (Seventh Lunar Month)
Cyclical day: dinghai (24/60)
Phase (element): Earth
Constellation: Tail (6/28)
"Day Personality" Cycle: Fullness (3/12)*
*Occasionally (as happens today) a "day personality repeats.
—————————————————  

Section Six
Appropriate Activities
and Miscellaneous Information
(top-to-bottom; right to left)
露白
零七辰
分時初
動移祭
土徙祀
作開出
灶市行
來雁
俱五重
將虛日
————
White Dew
(the fifteenth of twenty-four fifteen-day solar periods on the agricultural calendar)

Appropriate Activities
Venerating Ancestors
Going Out (and about)
Moving Households
Opening Markets
Moving Soil
Stove Work

Wild Geese Arrive
(the forty-third of seventy-two five-day solar micro-periods on the agricultural calendar)

Baleful Astral Influences
Doubled Days
Five Voids
Everything General

Section Seven
Inauspicious Stars 
Bifurcation
————

Section Eight
Miscellaneous

牀 庫
Granary
Bed, Storehouse

No comments:

Post a Comment