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.

Sunday, April 1, 2018

Lunar World Preview 2018 04-01

As the Lunar World Turns
Sunday, April 1, 2018
[a] Sunday Preview Reaction RF
Today is another whiplash day, but on more fronts than usual. All over the world, calendar watchers are wondering what the heck is going on. In one calendrical world, it is the very holiest day of the year. That is called "Easter." In another, it is a day for jokes (April Fool's Day). And if that weren't enough, we have a (less extreme) version of whiplash in Lunar World. Let's take a look.

Day Personality
(Section Five—Characters Six and Seven)
Today's "constellation personality" is Pleiades (昂). This is unlucky in all of the early writings about calendar, and it's worse than you think. If you begin construction or get married, illness and death will haunt (um, in Lunar World). It doesn't get much worse than this (in Lunar World).
[b] Pleiades RF

And yet, the jianchu "personality" is red-ink wonder: Completion (), and it is soooo great that it forms the mirror-opposite of the constellation personality. Calendrical interpretations stress that it's a good day for just about everything—even going on long journeys. On top of that, you have Discarded things (last Sunday), Decided (Wednesday), and now you will Complete things. Every twelve days is a cycle of decision, and today is the key to it all.

And if the unmitigated "badness" of one "personality" and the overwhelming "goodness" of the jianchu cycle is so good that I don't blame you for being confused. April Fools? Easter? Pleiades? Completion? Work it out, people (just as people have done for thousands of years...except that it is even more complicated today in a bustling, global world.


Lucky Stars
(Section Two)
Today's auspicious asterisms are Generational Virtue (歲德) and Linked Days (合日). They're good. Bask in them.

[c] Alliance RF

Auspicious Times
(Section Three)
There are four inauspicious (凶) times today, three in-between (), and five () auspicious two-hour periods.


Things to Avoid
(Section Four)
It's a bad day for Lawsuits and Litigation (詞訟) and Marriage (嫁娶). Think about these. Most of them flow from the "constellation personality," as it turns out.

Just Plain Counting
(Section Four—Characters 1-4)
It is the sixteenth (十六) day of the second lunar month. On top of that, it is #60: guihai (癸亥), the last of a cycle of sixty endlessly repeating days. Monday will be #1, and that is (six times-a-year) a new beginning. Sunday is an ending. Let's get ready for a reboot.

Elemental (and Phased)
(Section Five—Character 5)
Today's slice of the "Five Phases" (sometimes called the "Five Elements") is Water (水). Ordinarily, the Five Phases weave their way, two-by-two, through the calendar. Yesterday was Water. Today is Water, and tomorrow is Metal.
[d] Study RF

Appropriate Things
(Section Six) 
It's a solid day for eight different things, including Studying (入學), Moving Soil (動土), and Positioning Doors for geomantic efficiency (安門).

Fear Your Unlucky Stars 
(Bottom of Section Six)
The baleful asterisms (the bottom of section six) appear quite often. One is Doubled Days (重日), but it is the other one that gives me a shudder: Without Emolument (無錄). That is to say...without a salary (unless you are an undivested chief executive who needs to start worrying about a certain Emoluments Clause. I'm just saying that "Without Emolument" rhymes with "Mueller Time."

Miscellaneous Omens and Activities
(Sections Seven and Eight)

Bifurcation (丫) is the miscellaneous omen. It has a sense of roads taken and not-taken. Having said that, it has a connection to certain gendered hairstyles (two buns in the back of the head). Nobody knows what it means (and I am not really kidding). The miscellaneous activities are Divination (占), Bed (牀), and Edifice (房). Nobody knows what these mean, either (and, if you have been watching this space, you know that I have asked dozens of calendrical specialists, whose knowledge gets more-and-more vague from the bottom of section six onward).
[e] Edifice Complex RF
See You Tomorrow
Enjoy whichever calendrical marker you choose to observe on Sunday. I'll see you back here tomorrow night (no joke) for a preview (with previewing cats) of Monday in Lunar World.

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