Yin and yang, stems and branches, talismans
Chinese correlative cosmology and its magic: yin and yang and the five phases with their cycles of birth and conquest, the ten stems and twelve branches of the sixty-day cycle used since the Shang oracle bones, the Four Pillars of a birth, the Lo Shu square that is also Saturn's, feng shui, the Celestial Masters and their talismans, the almanac that still chooses the day, and the Book of Changes itself: its hexagrams, its casting with stalks and coins, and its two orders; and the twelve sovereign hexagrams that make the Changes a calendar of the year.
7 lessons · about 1.5 hours of reading · 1 free
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Zou Yan's correlative cosmos — yin and yang, wood, fire, earth, metal and water — and the two great cycles, of birth and of overcoming, that run through Chinese medicine, astrology and magic.
The ten heavenly stems and twelve earthly branches, the sixty-day cycle written on the Shang oracle bones and never broken since, and the twelve animals.
Bazi, the "eight characters" of a birth — the year, month, day and hour each written as a stem and a branch — the Day Master, the balance of the phases, and how the pillars are worked out.
The turtle from the River Luo, the nine halls of the magic square that is also Saturn's, the eight trigrams round it, and feng shui, the art of wind and water.
The Celestial Masters, the fu — orders written to gods and spirits in a script only priests can read — healing by talisman, and the Tong Shu that still chooses the day.
The Yijing — sixty-four hexagrams, how they were cast with yarrow stalks and coins, the layers of the text, the two orders of the hexagrams, and how to ask it a question.
The twelve hexagrams the Han scholars set over the months — yang returning at the winter solstice and climbing a line a month to the Creative, yin coming in at midsummer — the 'hexagram breaths' of Meng Xi and Jing Fang, and how to read the year's tide.
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