China's Lunar Calendar 2019 10-08

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

⇦⇦⇦⇦⇦ From right to left: ⇦⇦⇦⇦
10/10.................................................................................................................10/4

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-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.

Section One

Solar Calendar Date
八
日

二期星

Tenth Month, Eighth Day 
Tuesday, October 8

————

Section Two
Beneficent Stars 

(top to bottom, right to left)

六歲解
合支神
Unleashing Spirits
Generational Branch
Six Linkages

————

Section Three
Auspicious Hours
(top to bottom, right to left) 
申辰子
凶吉中
酉巳丑
中凶吉
戌午寅
中吉凶

亥未卯
中吉凶

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

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

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

 ————

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

忌
祈祭置
福祀產

Setting-up Production
Venerating Ancestors
Inquiring-into Fortune

 
Section Five 
Cosmological Information

初
十
戊
寅
土
室
執

Tenth Day (Ninth Lunar Month)

Cyclical day: wuyin (15/60)

Phase (element): Earth
"Constellation Personality" Cycle: House (13/28)
"Day Personality" Cycle: Grasp (6/12)

————

Section Six

Appropriate Activities

and Miscellaneous Information  

(top-to-bottom; right to left)
露寒
零二亥
六十整
 分二    
時       

————

宜

捕動訂
捉土婚
安上理
葬樑髮
賓來鴈鴻
歸劫債
忌煞不

 ————

Cold Dew
At the hai hour; 22:06 o'clock
(the seventeenth of twenty-four fifteen-day solar periods on the agricultural calendar)


Appropriate Activities

Marriage Engagements
Patterning Hair
Moving Soil
Raising Beams
Seizing and Capturing
Positioning Graves

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

Baleful Astral Influences

Debt Not
Plundered Balefulness
Return Taboo

Section Seven 
(the Chinese should be read right to left, 
but the English translation is underneath each character)
人 地

Person, Earth

 ————

Section Eight
Miscellaneous Items 
(the Chinese should be read top-to-bottom, and right-to-left;
the English translation for is under the bottom characters)

房
爐 牀

Edifice
Furnace, Bed