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.

Thursday, July 23, 2015

China's Lunar Calendar 2015 07-23

Click here for the introduction to the Round and Square series "Calendars and Almanacs"  
⇦⇦⇦⇦⇦ From right to left: ⇦⇦⇦⇦⇦
7/27................................................................................................................7/21
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
廿
四期星
Seventh Month, Twenty-Third Day
Astral Period Four
Thursday, July 23
———————————————— 

Section Two
Beneficent Stars 
(top to bottom, right to left)
德歲歲
日支德
Generational Virtue
Generational Branch
Virtuous Days
—————————————————

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

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

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

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) 

補問結
塞卜網
Binding Nets
Asking-about Future
Patching and Plugging
—————————————————

Section Five 
Cosmological Information 







Eighth Day (Sixth Lunar Month)
Cyclical day: gengzi (37/60)
Phase (element): Earth
Constellation: Astride (15/28)
"Day Personality" Cycle: Grasp (6/12)
—————————————————  

Section Six
Appropriate Activities
and Miscellaneous Information
(top-to-bottom; right to left)
暑大
 三十
十一   
分時
————
伏中
————
安理出
葬髮行
————
螢為草
————
歸咸上
忌池兀
————
Great Heat
At the beginning of the wu hour; 11:30 AM
(the twelfth of twenty-four fifteen-day solar periods on the agricultural calendar)

Middle Prostration
(the second of three periods of intense heat in the summer)

Appropriate Activities
 Going Out (and about)
Patterning Hair
Positioning Graves

Rotted Weeds Turn Into Fireflies
(the thirty-fourth of seventy-two five-day solar micro-periods on the agricultural calendar)

Baleful Astral Influences
Upper Amputee
Widespread Pond
Return Taboo

Section Seven
Inauspicious Stars 
人 水
Person, Water
————

磨 碓
Divination
Mortar, Pestle

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