Click here for the first post in the Round and Square introductory series "Calendars and Almanacs"
 |
| [a] Good luck RF |
Section five
is the most important of all—the heart of the calendar (Illustration B). It has seven characters that are useful in
reading the sequence of time and space.
The large characters in the center are important for every reader; the
red marginal characters refer to the significance of the date for those born at
certain times. The first two characters (初八) indicate the lunar
date, and can be translated as something such as “08.” From the first of the
(lunar) month to the tenth, the character 初
reads like the zero in “01, 02, 03…08, 09,” and even “0-10”—since 十,
“ten’” is just one Chinese character.
 |
| [b] Section Five |
This creates a symmetry when the numbers
turn to double characters from eleven through twenty-nine or thirty, and keeps
in place what might be called a “columnar aesthetic.” It functions much as does the zero in “07,
08, 09, 10, 11, 12,” and so forth, to keep double-digit columns tidy. The third
and fourth characters (庚辰) constitute “number seventeen”
in a sequence of sixty combinations that have been used to count time in China
for millenia. Those who have read
original Chinese historical manuscripts know that this is the way time was
counted in China until the last century and a half—by imperial title and the
cycle of sixty. Therefore, what readers
in the West think of as “1492” was a date in the Ming dynasty that would
traditionally have been reckoned in China as a cyclical character and the reign
name of an emperor.
The fifth
character (金) is part of an endlessly repeating cycle of the five
“phases” 五行 used in Chinese correlative thinking from early times.
August eighth was a “metal” day, as was the ninth. These “metal” days are followed, in turn, by
two woods, two waters, two earths, and two fires before starting their ten-day
cycle again. There are minor breaks in the pattern over the course of a year,
but it is a part of a larger cosmological system of five-phase correlative
thinking in China.
 |
| [c] Undulating RF |
Characters
six and seven give the “personalities” of the day, and these are among the most
consulted parts of the calendar. They can be seen as “cycles of personalities”
that make up a set of possibilities for the day. Character six is part of a
cycle of twenty-eight “lunar mansions,” each of which has taken on not only a
patina of auspiciousness (or inauspiciousness), but also what can only be
described as something of an individual “character.” As can be seen in Illustration B, these “personalities” range from generally lucky red characters to middling
or unlucky black ones. On August eighth, the character in this slot is “ghost
carriage”—one of the more inauspicious of possibilities. A traditional text has
the following to say about a “ghost carriage” day—one that contrasts markedly
with the numerical optimism of serial eights (8/8/08) selected for the Olympic
Opening Ceremony.
The “Ghost
Carriage” was perceived by early Chinese thinkers as the vehicle
used to
transport ghosts, who could, it was said, be seen riding in it. This is
the second smallest mansion through
which the moon travels. A box of four
stars in the constellation closely resemble the character 凶,
“inauspicious.”
The constellation is
regarded as presiding over departed spirits, and, by
extension, places where
people have been killed, such as battlefields.
By
further extension it relates to horses, soldiers, and weapons of
war. In the
sense of death and loss, the
constellation was regarded as the guardian
spirit of buried treasures hoarded
in times of war, and thus jewels and
accumulated wealth. Not
surprisingly, this constellation is regarded as being
generally unlucky, with
its symbolism of death, demons, and ghosts being
foremost.[1]
 |
| [d] Patterning RF |
The seventh,
and final character in this “heart of the calendar” is the most important of
all, and is one of the places where people turn to get the most powerful “feel”
for the day and its possibilities. One of my students once complained that this
particular character formed at least the initial topic of conversation whenever
her aunt would call from San Francisco—“Don’t let Suzy go out today”; or “The
eleventh would be a good day for Suzy’s visit to the dentist.” Although several
of the other parts of each day’s calendrical information factored into her
aunt’s calculations (notably the “avoid” and “appropriate” sections), character
number seven in section five was the most prominent. Called the jianchu cycle,
in a traditional manner of giving titles by using the first two characters of a
passage, it is a series of twelve endlessly repeating characters, each of which
has come to take on a distinct personality— almost a life of its own.
Let's take a break and return to the "heart of the heart of the calendar" tomorrow.
This is one post in a multi-part introduction to the Round and Square series "Calendars and Almanacs." Click below for the other posts in the series:
Notes
This is one post in a multi-part introduction to the Round and Square series "Calendars and Almanacs." Click below for the other posts in the series:
 |
| [e] Clustered RF |
[1] Derek
Walters. Chinese Astrology (Kent UK: Aquarian Press, 1987), 146.
Bibliography
Walters, Derek. Chinese Astrology. Kent UK: Aquarian Press, 1987.
No comments:
Post a Comment