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One - Line Drawing & Watercolor
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CHINESE ALMANAC ASTROLOGY
In honor and memory of my Teacher, Liu Ming
To support grace and ease / For the resolution of all beings
Commentary and compilations by Jamie Shulander
All notes from class notes/works by Liu Ming
INDICATORS (aka Auspices): Yearly, Monthly, Lunar and Daily
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LUNAR YEAR: YEAR of the WATER TIGER
“Charged: Courageous, strong-willed, energetic, enthusiastic, unconventional, lucky, honest, imaginative, competitive, dedicated, dignified and generous.
Deplete: restless, impulsive, inconsiderate, morose, stubborn, egotistical, rebellious, indecisive, overly sensitive to criticism, prideful and vain.
Image: The Tiger talked about in Chinese Astrology is well known to all Chinese farmers as a very successful predator of humans. Tigers were on the list of common causes of death among early Chinese peasants. The Chinese character for Tiger written on a farmhouse door is an amulet to ward off fire, theft and illness. Material things are of value to a Tiger only when they assist in creating his/her strong public image. Things must have power.
Water Tigers are proud, stubborn and strong. Their childhoods are a gauntlet of difficult obstacles that make them shred and develop their intuition. They enjoy travel and will leave home asap. They are impossible; at least one marriage ends in divorce and they do not settle down until late in life (48+). Their fortunes are uneven in extremes but they invent a brilliant and glorious escape by midlife. Their constitutions are strong and injuries, rather than illnesses, will cause their aging and death.”
LM Notes: Water Tiger
YANG WATER RAT (1852, 1912, 1972, 2032, 2092) ‘Mountain Rat’
“WATER is the native element of the Rat Earthly Branch. Water Rats are cunning, changeable and slightly paranoid characters. Their fortunes are very uneven when young but improve with age. Their finances will peak and plummet but end up solid. They are astute in many ways, insightful but easily also distracted (untrusting). Their luck (and self-centeredness) changes when they partner with a strong and stable mate or meet a confident teacher. They are prone to wind disorders (nervousness) and poor circulation. Old age will seem like the outcome of survival.”
LM Notes: 60 Characters
QI NODE: 21 Great Snow
Yin Matures
“The Great Snow qi node is a time of visions and magic. Our inner yang sees images in the Great Yin. Things are not as they appear. Yin extends its influence into our dreams. During this qi node qi is best at 11pm (when you are asleep). Practice neigong in the morning and evening. Remembered or forgotten dreams appear in this qi node that portend the coming year. The darkening of the light means shorter days, no rainbows and abundant snow. Stillness may lead to stagnation. All activity slows down, many things seem to stop or die. Every being/thing must rest. A trip south (winter vacation) is recommended for those with insufficient yang.”
LM The Way of Three Treasures
LUNAR HEXAGRAM: 39 Jian: Stumbling
“Events call for experts, but, even if experts cannot be found, all goes well. Caution, patience, humility and self-discipline pay off. If you are not anxious or selfish, you are given success."
LM Changing: Zhouyi 39 Jian
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MONDAY December 19, Yang Fire Horse 26
Hexagram 7 Shi: Army
Lunar Mansion: The Heart / Fox
Solar Indicator: Destroy
“FIRE is the native element of the Horse Earthly Branch. Fire Horses are outspoken, quick-tempered and skillful. They are very capable with their hands and articulate in speech. Their restlessness is profound. Working in more than one job suits them. They are very good friends but vindictive enemies. Their fortunes are uneven but will consistently improve as they age. Their relationships are often unconventional, they will marry more than once. They are prone to injury, sudden attacks of acute pain and high fevers.”
LM Notes: 60 Characters
"Shi is time for order and cooperation. Agreements and alliances foster good fortune. When Shi is divined teamwork and personal discipline can transform danger into success, but losses will occur.”
LM Changing: Zhouyi 7 Shi
“It is auspicious to comply with superiors, make offerings to the ancestors, move home and/or immigrate. Only routine work may avoid negativity. Contraindicated activity: If you start a lawsuit (making your case) you will lose everything (imprisonment). If you construct a building, get married or bury the dead, disaster follows. Everything sold today will be at a loss to the seller. Pushing forward (forcing progress) on this day will have three times the negative result of other days.”
LM Notes: The Heart
“The successful prince as warrior must now lose his youthful ambitions and develop into a proper king….Today calculated loss (cancellation) succeeds”
LM Notes: Destroy
TUESDAY December 20, Yin Fire Goat 27
Hexagram 4 Meng: Immaturity
Lunar Mansion: The Tail / Tiger
Solar Indicator: Danger
“Fire Goats are high-strung, moody and successful. They have great good fortune due to previous causes and find it easy to set goals and reach them. They always live in prosperity and comfort. Argumentative and self-assured, they often offend others and leave themselves emotionally stranded. Their overactive minds often cause them to abandon beneficial situations. Male sibling relationships are difficult and they usually have children late in life. Their moodiness is associated with exhaustion caused by nagging, minor chronic illnesses and kidney disorders.”
LM Notes: 60 Characters
“What is unformed has great potential but is also lacks clarity - so success, even progress, is difficult. It is unfavorable for those who are anxious and impulsive. People of limited capacity may miscalculate their ability to make use of an opportunity. Read the advice patiently and do not consult the Zhouyi again on this matter. Meng is often divined when you are obsessed and anxious about something."
LM Changing: Zhouyi 4 Meng
“It is auspicious to start a building (brings prosperity), get married (brings fertility), bury the dead (resolves karma) and educate the young (secure longevity) on this day. It is a good time to move house (into a city). These actions today cause a person or family and all their projects to flourish. On this day investments increase in value. It is ideal to give or receive (spend) inheritances. Enjoying the arts is appropriate. Lost treasures can be found on this day. It is ideal for self-cultivation, meditation and enjoyment. It is a time of recognizing and acknowledging achievement with rewards. Evening is less auspicious.”
LM Notes: The Tail
“To roust hypocrisy in his new alliances the leader must bait his hidden enemies (yin) by showing vulnerability. This day is a qi expression of true power but all the action is fraught with danger and risk. The games of political power are also the precursors of decline. The power plays show yin to be drawing life from the heart of yang. Success is limited now to a kind of survival. Manipulation and covert action succeed. Elegance becomes the mask of cleverness and intrigue. Doing only what needs to be done is best. Old habits or patterns of pressing forward will invite catastrophe. Beware grudges.”
LM Notes: Danger
WEDNESDAY December 21, Yang Earth Monkey 28
Hexagram 29 Kan: Pit
Lunar Mansion: The Basket / Leopard
Solar Indicator: Complete
“Earth Monkeys are charming, eloquent and moody. They have great good fortune due to previous causes. They attract excellent helpers and mentors and win the respect of many people. Most of their plans succeed due to perseverance. Not attentive partners, they do enjoy parenting and will be supported in old age by loving children. Their immunity is not strong and they will catch all contagious illnesses around them. They are also prone to liver disorders.”
LM Notes: 60 Characters
“You are repeatedly trapped and struggling. You must stoically accept restraint. If you accept that you are in a sinkhole, find the message in it, and develop patience, things go well."
LM Changing: Zhouyi 29 Kan
"It is auspicious to marry, work hard, purchase, build and remodel (new door = new resources) on this day. It is auspicious to continue your routine work, review and reinvest. Acquiring wealth (work, invest and collecting debts) is highlighted. Good for burials, memorials and funerals (rain of blessings from the ancestors). Contraindicated activity: Laziness, gossip and slander."
LM Notes: The Basket
“It is a day for resting on your laurels. Success is established and secured and the new state seems to govern itself. Enemies are few. It is a time for inward reflection (yin) on the bare face of reality (yang). Struggle (yang) is no longer possible or necessary (yin). Decline is not feared and success not celebrated. Wisdom approaches and withdrawing succeeds. Art is the demonstration of confidence, dignity and wisdom - be artful. No more accumulating - decorate with modesty. The way of perfecting power is austerity and restraint. Do less, have less, show less and seek nothing. Enjoy what is already manifest.”
LM Notes: Complete
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QI NODE: 22 Winter Solstice
Yin Rules
“The Winter Solstice qi node has the shortest day and the longest night of the year. It is one of four annual pivots that rectify the annual qi. During this qi node qi is at its height at midnight! At the end of this qi node, the new calendar year begins. In the Chinese official calendar it is the mid-point of winter. The astrological year is still months away.
Yin peaks but in this same qi node it begins its inevitable decline - supreme yin gives birth to the flux of yang. Tigers mate. Christmas lights twinkle. Birth and death commingle, but life is cold and apparently dead now begins to move toward life.
Everywhere in Chinese cosmology black (dark) produces ‘yellow’ or light of the sun. ‘The darkest hour is just before dawn’.”
LM The Way of Three Treasures
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THURSDAY December 22, Yin Earth Rooster 29
Hexagram 59 Huan: Overflowing
Lunar Mansion: The Ladle / Griffon
Solar Indicator: Harvest
“Earth Roosters are peaceful, intelligent and likeable characters. Though confident they win over others by modesty. They are good at forming alliances with powerful and/or helpful people. Though their childhood is uneven, their fortune is generally very good. After many sexual liaisons they become committed partners. They adore their children. They are suited to work that requires a good memory. Their strong constitutions are challenged by stagnation and damp and exercise is the best remedy.”
LM 60 Characters
"Huan is generally favorable and associated with getting rid of the old and bringing in the new. It is the refreshment that comes from deep and honest spiritual revelation."
LM Changing: Zhouyi 59 Huan
"It is a most auspicious day for Daoist religious rites, initiations and transmission of (esoteric) teachings. It is an auspicious day to start up a business and build a new building (home, temple). It is a safe day to dig foundations (wells, trenches) and get married. New opportunities (news) abound - taking exams and routine work bring great success/reward on this day. It is an auspicious day to bury the dead - they will rest peacefully and benefit the surviving relatives.”
"Contraindicated activity: Hypocrisy, irreverence, breaking taboos and sloth."
LM Notes: The Ladle
“What makes this day smooth is a sense of fearlessness. It is not so much how it goes (yang) as what it shows (yin). Rise and fall are no longer the point - the wide view can be taken. Ease is possible - effortless continuity on all sides. The qi seems to float us forward quite naturally - ebbing and flowing are both acceptable. The lessons of early life are found in both maturing and declining. Everything succeeds. Cleverness and survival give way to courage and directness. Be like a beloved monarch not an ambitious merchant. Let new resources and assistance come forward by standing back.”
LM Notes: Harvest
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YIN WATER OX (1853, 1913, 1973, 2033, 2093) ‘Field Ox’
“Water Ox are tough, ornery and solitary characters. Their parents are distant. Their strength results in insensitivity and a dull mind. Their speech is often thoughtlessly hurtful. They work hard but experience chronic fatigue at the same time. They sleep a great deal. Their parents and children love them. Their fortunes are a perpetual struggle, but they, in a sense enjoy the struggle. They are often burdened by the ancestral qi of the unresolved dead.”
LM Notes: 60 Characters
LUNAR HEXAGRAM: 19 Lin: Approach
"You must be patient and appropriate in your progress, but do not procrastinate. The auspice is for forward action."
LM Changing: Zhouyi 19 Lin
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FRIDAY December 23, Yang Metal Dog 1
Hexagram Consult the Oracle
Lunar Mansion: The Oxboy / Ox
Solar Indicator: Open
“Metal Dogs are shy, smart and hardworking. They have great good fortune due to previous causes but do not know how to enhance them. Their lives contain many opportunities to resolve fate and liberate their ancestors. Young Metal Dogs get hurt by an elderly or soft-spoken stranger. Their sensitivity is untamable. When they are ill they sleep very deeply. They are charitable.”
LM 60 Characters
“It is auspicious to stay home, guard resources, meditate and focus. It is auspicious to initiate austerity, enter retreat, recover and economize.”
LM Notes: The Oxboy
“The choice here is whether to call fate something to fight or something to embrace. It is a day with an easy qi. It is a day to appreciate how things really operate beyond the desire that creates images and appearances. Accepting should be a boundless (yin) act beyond goals - the goal has always been return to our beginningless origin (Dao). There is no protagonist (yang) that should relax - there is only relaxation itself (yin). Look around for a successor (new plan, idea, task) and resume the heart/mind of a novice. The son of a rebel leader may become the second emperor of a new dynasty. An open heart gives the option to acquire great wisdom.”
LM Notes: Open
SATURDAY December 24, Yin Metal Pig 2
Hexagram 40 Jie: Release
Lunar Mansion: The Maiden / Bat
Solar Indicator: Shut
“Metal Pigs are gentle, kind and determined characters. Their dark previous causes visit them in their youth and slowly subside with age. Unstable family life disorients them in childhood but eventually hones their inner resources into strength or madness. Their strength and determination defeats all obstacles, and they find many. After midlife (40) they may overreact to difficulties and damage their health (injury). They will marry, more than once or be promiscuous before settling down. Their emotions affect their immunity and they often suffer from bowel disorders and hypochondria.”
LM Notes: 60 Characters
“...Nowhere to go means you have no particular goal or purpose because the freedom to choose is new. You can let things come and go, that is just let them open up by themselves. After every period of restraint there is a release (southwest). Inhibition naturally thaws like ice in the spring.”
LM Changing: Zhouyi 40 Jie
“It is auspicious to stay home, enjoy the arts, self-reflect, do inner planning and practice austerity (meditation, fasting and rest). It is beneficial to guard your health and conserve your qi. It is favorable to support others. Building may be safe but not profitable.”
“It is not auspicious to take risks, medical treatments, bury the dead (cause epidemics, bowel disorders). To initiate industry (dig earth) and production on this day invites calamity.”
LM Notes: The Maiden
“A Shut day is a day of rest, whether you like it or not. Qi resources are spent and the notion of a spender (yang) is long gone. Dispersion has ended in exhaustion (big yin) and no memory exists to create joy or negativity. Struggling to act on such a day borrows qi from fantasy and sets up a ghostly pattern of bad qi credit. What’s it like to float down the river with no boat, no river and no protagonist? It is ideal day for retreat, mediation and severing ties with everything - don’t worry, it is not the end of anything! Let go anyway - feel the freedom and inaction, disconnectedness, because it offers limitless insight. Focus on your golf swing and forget about how the kids are squandering their inheritance on cocaine. It’s that kind of day! The river has reached the sea and even the water is confused.”
LM Notes: Shut
SUNDAY December 24, Yang Water Rat 3
Hexagram 64 Weiji: Not Yet Across
Lunar Mansion: The Void / Rat
Solar Indicator: Design
“WATER is the native element of the Rat Earthly Branch. Water Rats are cunning, changeable and slightly paranoid characters. Their fortunes are very uneven when young but improve with age. Their finances will peak and plummet but end up solid. They are astute in many ways, insightful but easily also distracted (untrusting). Their luck (and self-centeredness) changes when they partner with a strong and stable mate or meet a confident teacher. They are prone to wind disorders (nervousness) and poor circulation. Old age will seem like the outcome of survival.”
LM Notes: 60 Characters
"Expect to be unfulfilled at first and then later satisfied. The old has not quite turned into the new...Good for waiting and preparation, education and growth. Bad for pressing forward, conflict, lawsuits, examinations, and travel."
LM Changing: Zhouyi 64 Weiji
“It is auspicious to stay home, strengthen family ties and protect your children. Sleep and rest are recommended (be cautioned by your dreams).”
“On this day it is not auspicious to marry (your children will be delinquent or handicapped), bury the dead or make offerings to ancestors (ghosts/dead will become demonic - causing illnesses for 3 years!). Extra-marital affairs begun on this day will eventually ruin your family, reputation and health. Medical treatments today can cause injury and expose constitutional weakness.”
LM Notes: The Void
“It is an excellent day to recover wisdom by stepping back, planning, recalling alliances and reassessing our position.”
LM Notes: Design
Jamie Shulander
Instagram: @jamieshulander
