Round and Square: China's Lunar Calendar 2018 07-07

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.

Saturday, July 7, 2018

China's Lunar Calendar 2018 07-07

Click here for the introduction to the Round and Square series "Calendars and Almanacs"

***Check out the full explanation of today's lunar-solar calendar translation***
⇦⇦⇦⇦⇦ From right to left: ⇦⇦⇦⇦
7/12..............................................................................................................7/05

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-solar (or "luni-solar" calendar; I call it the "lunar" calendar in order to distinguish it from the kinds of calendars most Westerners use. It has a basic translation and minimal interpretation. Unless you have been studying 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. You will likely find that several of the translations seem quite "fanciful" in English. I am simply trying to convey that they also sound fairly fanciful in Chinese.

***Check out the full explanation of today's lunar-solar calendar translation***

Section One

Solar Calendar Date
七
日

六期星

Seventh Month, Seventh Day
Saturday, July 7

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***Check out the full explanation of today's lunar-solar calendar translation***
Section Two
Beneficent Stars

(top to bottom, right to left)

月解金
空神堂

Golden Hall
Unleashing Spirits
Lunar Vacancy

***Check out the full explanation of today's lunar-solar calendar translation***
Section Three
Auspicious Hours
(top to bottom, right to left)
申辰子
吉凶凶
酉巳丑
吉中吉
戌午寅
凶凶中

亥未卯
中吉中

23:00-01:00 Inauspicious
01:00-03:00 Auspicious
03:00-05:00 In-Between
05:00-07:00 In-Between

07:00-09:00 Inauspicious
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.
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***Check out the full explanation of today's lunar-solar calendar translation***
Section Four
Activities to Avoid
(top-to-bottom; right to left)

忌
修問結
倉卜網

Binding Nets
Divinatory Questioning

***Check out the full explanation of today's lunar-solar calendar translation***
Section Five
Cosmological Information

廿
四
庚
子
土
氐
執

Twenty-Fourth Day (Fifth Lunar Month)

Cyclical day: gengzi (37/60)

Phase (element): Earth
"Constellation Personality" Cycle: Foundation (3/28)
"Day Personality" Cycle: Grasp (6/12)*
*Occasionally a "day personality" repeats, as "Grasp" does today.

————

***Check out the full explanation of today's lunar-solar calendar translation***

Section Six

Appropriate Activities

and Miscellaneous Information

(top-to-bottom; right to left)

暑小
四十午
十一初
二時
分

宜
除裁入
服衣學
安理出
葬髮行
至風溫
俱歸上
將忌兀
————

Slight Heat
At the beginning of the wu hour; 11:42 a.m.
(the eleventh of twenty-four fifteen-day solar periods on the agricultural calendar)

Appropriate Activities
Entering Study
Going Out (and about)
Cutting-out Clothing
Patterning Hair
Discarding Clothing
Positioning Graves

Warm Winds Arrive
(the thirty-first of seventy-two five-day solar micro-periods on the agricultural calendar)

Baleful Astral Influences