​As the New Year approaches, I feel apprehensive and a bit sad.  This will be the first New Year since the passing of Liu Ming, and all of his students, I’m sure, are reminded of his absence in the absence of his beloved New Year’s talk.  As one of his distant students, I cannot hope to fill his shoes in this or any regard.  So I begin this blog by honoring his memory and paying homage to his wisdom.  Thank you, Lao Ge; I hope the following blog makes you happy.    
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At the turn of the New Year, many Chinese Astrologers come forward and write articles on the coming year and what each Qi Character should expect—usually taking the form of a list, for example detailing what Tiger’s should do/expect in a Monkey year and so on.  But that is fortunetelling, and I would like to do something different.  Yes, I will briefly discuss the Yang Fire Monkey year, but I must contend that this information is useless without wisdom; if we do not understand what is meant by “Qi Character” in Chinese Astrology, then any list of strategies for Tigers, Roosters, and so on in the upcoming year will only further our confusion.  So as usual, I insist that we back up and examine the VIEW TEACHINGS before delving into details about the 12 animals. 

Character is perhaps the most important teaching in Chinese Astrology, and yet it is probably the most misunderstood.  This is due largely to the availability of vague information about the 12 animals on the back of Chinese menus.  Most people have heard of their Qi Character in the Chinese Zodiac, but very few grasp the profundity of what is meant by Goat, Monkey, or Rooster Qi.  So before we can understand what Monkey Qi means for us in the coming New Year, we must understand the basic wisdom of Qi Character.

So I will begin by saying that Qi Character is a description of Qi (hopefully this is obvious).  In other words, the use of animals is, clearly, symbolic.  If we get hung up on the symbol, then we fail to look beyond “Monkey” into our own experience.  Monkey is a description of a pattern or display of Qi.

Qi is one of the true profundities of the Chinese Tradition.  The Chinese Tradition of the Mantic Arts represents over 10,000 years of research into the questions—what is a human being and what is the universe?  In contemplating these questions, the Chinese never came up with God; they never came up with a Self, and they never discovered a substantial world.  What they discovered was Qi. 

What is Qi?  Well that is a difficult question to answer.  In my own words, I would describe the universe as a vast sea of unimpeded light moving within unbounded, limitless space; the Chinese might call this vast unknowable sea Tao.  We are able to see and experience the light of Tao because it moves/vibrates on a spectrum, like a rainbow.  This movement quality of light is called Qi, and everything we call “stuff,” “substance,” objects in space, are a display of Qi patterning/moving in a particular way, both cyclic and rhythmic.  An aspect of our fundamental nature is mirror like, called Shen, sometimes translated as the heart-mind; this heart-mind reflects the light of Tao and "crystallizes" it into a universe which appears to be somewhat stable due to the five phase/element cycle of Qi, which I described in a past blog. 

Of course, that is all philosophical and abstract.  Big fancy ideas aside, we need not look anywhere but our own experience to understand Qi. 

What is a human being?  A pattern of Qi.  If you observe your own experience, you will find that what you are has a streaming, flowing quality like the flame of a candle, and all that you experience is a kind of movement made visible/apparent because of a still, spacious, clear, and aware background.  Everything alternates between motion and stillness, and even in the deepest state of meditative quiescence, a subtle undulation or pulsation always persists.  Emptiness is pregnant with vitality and infinite potential, so Qi is also a kind of vitality, life, or sentience.  Everything in the universe is alive and eating. 

No stillness exists apart from movement and no movement apart from stillness.  We call this movement Qi.  Qi is not substance, and it is not visible; you cannot photograph it, measure it, or detect it with machines.  In this sense, the Chinese Tradition and western Science will never meet.  We can call Qi “energy,” which aligns more with quantum physics, but it is important to recognize that we experience this energy not because it is substantial but because it is always in a state of flux.  Qi Character, then, symbolically describes the character/quality of Qi depending on where/when it appears in the eternal flow or procession of time. Qi is movement, and all movement takes place in time; so for astrologers, Qi is time, which is compound and processional.   
  
The View of Chinese Astrology, then, states that this flux of Qi flows in a temporal and mathematical procession.  Chinese Astrology, strictly speaking is not actually Astrology but “Chronology.”  This flow of Qi, like our clocks (which despite our linear time fixation are also a circle), goes around and around.  It does not go anywhere except “around.”  If we have a linear view of time, we believe that time is “going somewhere,” that it is progressing/evolving towards an ideal, a perfect future, or towards some big catastrophic end/apocalypse, which goes hand in hand with saying that God created the universe or that there was a big bang.  Astrology cannot accept the notion of a beginning or end unless we state that they are the same point on a circle going nowhere except 'round.
 
After thousands of years of observation, the Chinese Tradition have been able to identify and name the mathematical steps, the “tic marks,” in this procession of Qi/time, which flows in concentric circles, spiraling outward projecting the universe from our Shen (which is located symbolically in the chest) to Tao, which describes the big non-dual “whatever.”

Still with me?  So the Chinese Tradition states that Qi/time flows in a basic pattern of 60, derived from the cycle of Jupiter.  It takes Jupiter 60 years to end up back in the same place, which is where we get 60 seconds, 60 minutes, etc.  Cultures all over the world came up with this pattern of 60.  Each pattern of 60 is either Yin or Yang, which gives us 60 x 2 or 120, which is the basic life expectancy according to Chinese Medicine and the length of a “cycle of fate,” given to us by our ancestors, which is what I read in a natal chart during an astrology session. 

In past blogs, I described Yin-Yang and the Five Elements, which are called the Heavenly Stems.  Together, this gives us a pattern of 10, again describing the flow of Qi in the universe from Microcosm to Macrocosm.  So to get 60, we are left with a pattern of 12.  These 12, which go to 60, are called the Earthly Branches.  In other words, this is one of the primary ways that Qi displays on planet Earth in relation to the greater cycles of Yin-Yang-5 Elements in Heaven/the Universe.  5 elements x 12 branches = 60 types of Qi in the flow of time. 

In order to grasp the profundity of the 12 Branches, we describe them with basic and relatable animal symbols, each of which are connected to a myriad of details within Chinese Medicine (organs, for example), Astrology, Feng Shui, and so on. 

After thousands of years of observing Qi in human beings and in the natural world/universe, the Chinese noticed that certain categories of animals exemplified certain traits, which captured the essence of these patterns of Qi.  Over the course of time, these animals became iconic, and we settled on 12, each with five elemental variations.  The use of the stems and branches are among the earliest time records in human history, discovered on oracle bones from the Shang Dynasty (c. 1200–1045 BCE).  Now, this sexagenary cycle is used all over Asia to form the basic calendar.  In China, this calendar is called the Tong-Shu, and it is the longest printed book in human history. 

In the big picture, this cycle of 60 describes epochs of 60 years, the last of which began in 1984 with the Yang Wood Rat.  The cycle of Qi/time spirals outwards, infinitely marking the spiraling of galaxies and incalculable eons, and it spirals inwards, marking 60 months, 60 days, 60 hours, 60 seconds, and so on.  In our body, this same cycle is reflected in our breathing, our digesting of food, our circulating of blood/Qi/Jing, our waking, dreaming, and sleeping, and in our reproductive system. 

In popular folk Astrology, our basic Qi Character is read according to the year, month, day, and hour, called the Ba Zi, the Eight Characters, or Four Pillars.  In the tradition I learned from Liu Ming, our Qi Character is derived primarily from a synthesis of the year and hour. 

But what does all this mean?  We are about to enter the year of the Yang Fire Monkey.  Yang Fire Monkey, then, describes the Qi Pattern of the whole universe (relative to planet earth) starting February 8th.  That’s a pretty big idea; so again, I must insist that we understand what Qi Character means in relation to our basic human experience before we can relate it to the whole universe beginning February 8th. 

First, the view of Chinese Astrology states that we are a Qi Character.  We do not have a Qi Character so much as we are a Qi Character.  In other words, our Qi Character has something to do with the timeliness of our birth.  We come into being somewhere/when in the procession of time when the Qi of the Universe is patterning in a particular way, as a compounded flow of the types of Qi that accord to the year, month, day, and hour. 

For example, I was born during a Yang Metal Dragon Hour on a Yang Metal Horse Day during the Yin Fire Rooster Month of a Yang Fire Tiger Year.  So at the moment of my birth, the Qi on planet Earth was a synthesis of these patterns.  According to Astrology, I emerged during Dragon Hour as a living embodied expression of these patterns of Qi. 

In a way, the pattern we are born out of/into patterns us; we are conditioned by this energy. Everything that comes into being at a particular moment in time does so as an expression of that moment in time—everything from people, to cats, mold, tadpoles, countries (the USA is a Fire Monkey, for example), ideas, and so.  Anything that we can say “begins” relatively speaking (nothing really begins in the Chinese View) has a Qi Character and a Fate.

In relation to human beings, the timeliness of our birth generates a pattern of Qi that we display from birth to death.  So as I often explain to clients, the wisdom of our Qi character begins by understanding that it is with us until death.  Our living embodiment comes together as a synthesis of these energies, and this basic pattern does not disperse until death, when our Five Spirits (the subject of another blog) and Five Elements return to Tao, to “don’t know.”

So I was born a Tiger, and I will die a Tiger.  My “Tiger-ness” does not change; it does improve; it does not get educated.  I cannot choose to be a Rabbit.  Tiger represents a basic pattern of Qi that displays certain qualities and characteristics depending on my health, harmony, happiness, and so on.  If I am in a state of ill-health and disharmony, then I tend to display the more negative or constricted qualities of Tiger Qi, and likewise if I am health, happy, and harmonious then I display its virtue qualities.  Tiger Qi is natural to me, and whatever Qi character you display is natural for you.

We study our Qi Character in Chinese Astrology to learn our natural pattern so that we do not resist or fight against it, trying to be something we are not.  In turn, we learn about the Qi Character of others so we can understand what is natural for them, so we do not expect them to change in a way they fundamentally never will.  Knowing we cannot escape our Character, we can learn to “go with it,” especially when we learn of our more difficult patterns.  Tiger Qi for example represent a basic impulse to “break free” and “start again” because our outer element is Yang Wood, which often causes Tigers to disappear and abandon situations we find difficult or constraining (especially Fire Tigers like me).  Everyone can do this, but Tigers especially do this.  Each Character has a certain energetic impulse most characteristic of them that manifests as behavior patterns.

In the tradition I learned, the year is our primary Qi Character, and the hour is secondary.  The year is like a noun, and the hour is like an adjective.  The year represents the big picture of our behavior patterns, based on a deep fundamental impulse, and the hour often describes more surface level personality traits, the way the Qi of the year gets focused. 

I am often asked—why is the year primary?  Doesn’t this mean that everyone born in 1986 has the same Qi Character? Yes. 

Character is not personality.  Character represents a pattern of Qi, an energetic impulse that can display numerous personalities, depending on numerous conditions.  According to the Chinese Tradition everyone born in 1986 has a great deal in common.  The wisdom of Chinese Astrology is not individualistic.  The goal of studying Astrology is to discover how much you have in common with everyone.  We are a cast of 60 Characters, and we play out the same stories over and over again with different details. 

So Chinese Astrology says there are 60 basic types of people.  If you add the month, day, and hour (60x60x60x60) we get 12,960,000 types of people, but basically there are 60.  And each of these Qi patterns interacts with the other Qi patterns in a particular way.  Some are opposite; some are complementary; some are neutral.  Studying these patterns reveals a great deal, not only about human relationships, but about relationships in society and nature.  Studying the Qi of the year, for example, reveals a lot about life, history, events, politics, and so on.   

Finally, we cannot understand the 12 Qi Characters if we get hung up on them as personalities.  They are more like a whirlwind in open space.  Liu Ming once used the image of dropping a leaf into this whirlwind; it falls fast at some points of the whirlwind and slowly at other points. 

In other words, if we make them personalities, then we want them to be equal, but they are not.   Our calendar in the West is fixed, which is why Western Astrology is off by almost a month, but nature is not fixed.  Some months are longer than others, so are some days.  Time does not flow equally, and so the different Qi Characters are not “equal,” but they are each capable in different and distinct ways.

So how does this work?  I have no idea, but it does.  This knowledge has been known and tested for thousands of years in Asia.  I have no interest in trying to explain why everyone born in 1986 (within the lunar year) is a Tiger, but we are. 

Many people are skeptical of their Qi Character.  Many read the back of Chinese menus and say “that’s not me; I don’t do that!”  Yes you do.  If you have any self reflection at all, your Qi Character will resonate with you.  And often the most basic statements are the most revealing—Tigers are impulsive.  This wisdom actually changed my life.

Often the basic descriptions are vague, and we can say “everyone does that!”  Yes; that’s the point—what we have in common, not what makes us beautiful unique snowflakes.  Most of the personal stories that we cherish and think special are common as dirt. 

According to Astrology, all of us move through these energies every hour, every day, every month, every year, so we should be familiar and identify with all of them to a degree.  I can explain each Character in such a way that you will identify with it.  In the West, we believe wisdom is somehow based on precision, based on our exaltation of science/engineering, but in Chinese Astrology this is not the case. 

So, now we arrive at Yang Fire Monkey, the New Lunar Year, which we move into beginning February 8th.  What do I have to say about it?  While I could go into an in-depth description of Fire Monkey Qi, I will not, because I don’t think there is much wisdom in giving people strategies in order to avoid discomfort, which is very “Monkey,” and this is because I am a Tiger, which is Monkey’s opposite.  I do not find these lists very helpful because I feel that we tend to entertain them and then forget them.  It is helpful to understand that we cannot change our Character.  As an Astrologer, this is where I find wisdom.  But again, I am a Tiger, so everything I have written here is a display of my Tiger Qi, which I cannot help.  I try to describe things in a way that everyone can understand, but this is all a kind of “Tiger” way of understanding.    

Fire Monkey could be a powerful year for many people, but then again, so can any year.  Many people I know are little frightened by the image of a Fire Monkey, but not to worry. 

I will say that Monkey Qi represents a fundamental impulse to push boundaries, test limits, explore, play, manipulate, imagine, imitate, and take risks; Monkey is a kind of responsive, vigilant, alert, pervasive, "scanning" Qi, which seeks to recognize danger/threats in order to adapt, play, poke, test, and ultimately avoid danger.  Monkey Qi is, perhaps, the most resilient of the 12 and can go far far out into oblivion and always come back unscathed.  It represents the mystical and often delicate border between imagination and vision, between fantasy and insight, defined by Monkey’s Outer Element—Yang Metal.  Monkey Qi represents a kind of active resourcefulness, gathering, amassing, and manipulating resources for the best advantage.  The symbol of Monkey is related to the Human Realm, and in its negative qualities represent the danger of delusion and desire.  In its depleted state, Monkey Qi can become frantic, nervous, erratic, compulsive, anxious, unfocused, deceptive, and even criminal.  

This Qi is available to everyone, so go with it.  That's my basic "advice."  Yang Fire represents a kind of energetic consuming quality—a vigor, vitality, passion, even aggression, and although we say “Fire melts Metal,” this does not necessarily mean conflict.  Fire represents a kind of warmth/friction which softens the razor’s edge of the analytical mind (metal).  While it can make reason and logic a bit blurry, it can also help us not to get fanatical about our logic.   

What we do with this Qi is entirely up to us, depending on our Character.  Ming likened the Qi of the year to a buffet.  Yang Fire Monkey is all that is available, and we walk down the buffet taking what our appetite inspires.  We all sit down to eat Yang Fire Monkey; some people belch, others fart, some get sleepy, some are inspired and energized, but everything was Yang Fire Monkey.  Our own Qi Character is like our digestive system, and we will each digest Fire Monkey differently.  

​Yang Fire Monkey offers great potential for change, and I will leave it at that.  If you really want to know more about Monkey Qi and your own Character, book a progression reading for next year, and we can talk. 

I leave it up to you to contemplate what this means.  Wisdom meets the Qi of each moment, discovers it in every step, and responds appropriately.  Every Qi Character reveals our own Character to us in a different light.  Monkey Qi is the opposite of Tiger, so for me the next year is the greatest opportunity for transformation and insight.

I am reminded of a story from Indian Astrology.  In Indian Astrology, Saturn is the great depositor of Karma, the great limiter, and the source of our deepest difficulties and transformations.  We go through 3-4 “Saturn Returns,” which few people understand and yet many talk about, and we also go through certain periods when Saturn transits the three houses around our Moon, called Sade Sati.  Astrological jargon aside, this is supposed to be a time of great difficulty, and it is, but this is not wisdom.  In one story, Śiva uses his Yogic power to hide on the bottom of a river from Saturn during Sade Sati.  After, he emerges and is proud that he outwitted Śani (Saturn), but he learned nothing.  During this time, Hanuman invites Saturn to sit on his head, after which he goes into battle, using Saturn’s power to fight demons and demi-gods.  By the end of it, Saturn cannot wait to get away from Hanuman.  And Hanuman is transformed  into a pillar of strength and bravery.  Long story short, the “moral” is that Hanuman’s wisdom came from embracing hardship as the source of his strength and transformation. 

So it goes with all Astrology.  Yang Fire Money Year will be profound the world over.  The Goat Year has helped us to organize and has prepared us for social transformation the world over, and now here come the monkeys.  With wisdom and courage we can ride Monkey Qi and change the world, for better or worse.  Either way, I look forward to it.  And thanks again Ming; you are missed.  

Before delving further into the view teachings of Chinese Astrology through the five elements, I would like to offer a glimpse into the practicality of Astrology.  While I often emphasis the “big picture,” this big picture can be difficult at times to connect with, especially in a culture which does not value cyclical time.  So, I would like to offer a simple guide to a “Chinese Day.” 

In the view of cyclical time, the energy of the universe moves in natural rhythms.  These rhythms are mathematical and move in a pattern of 12 branches/Qi characters x 5 elements or 60, derived from the Jupiter cycle, the historical source of our 60 second/60 minute time measurement in the West.  These rhythms of 60 spiral inwards and outwards from microcosm to macrocosm, including the rhythms of our body and the rhythms of the universe.  While these cycles are endless, the most observable and practical are called the Four Pillars—the lunar year, month, day, and hour.  For example, I am writing this during the Yang Water Horse hour of a Yin Wood Rabbit day of a Yin Fire Pig month of a Yin Wood Goat Year.  These words describe the different patterns of Qi that the universe moves through all the time, around and around.  Like the clock, these cycles do not go anywhere except in circles.  I will have much more to say about the Four Pillars in future blogs.

For now, rather than going on and on about the view, I would like to emphasize the practicality of these cycles by describing the basic outline of the 12 hour day of the Chinese calendar.  A Chinese hour is 2 western hours, covering the standard 24 hour day, and moves along in the pattern of 5 elements and 12 Qi characters of the zodiac, forming a 60 double-hour cycle, which spans 5 days. 

Chinese Astrology teaches that the universe is exuding a certain pattern of energy during each phase of this cycle, and the energy available tends towards certain patterns of conduct.  If we live according to this cycle, we have the momentum of the universe behind us, and we are more apt to live a harmonious life.  If we resist or ignore these cycles, then we not only shorten our life, but we obscure the wisdom inherent in our natural condition. 

The universe is already moving in a certain pattern; if we go against the grain, we slowly grind ourselves down.  We can choose to ignore the natural condition with our freedom, and human beings are very good at adapting.  So in some cases, we can succeed, but only temporarily.  In this view, everything is self-resolving, so eventually, moving against this cycle will cause illness. 

Unfortunately, our culture pushes us to be productive all the time, and our industries often force people into unnatural cycles.  For example, service jobs often require people to work late into the night when they should be asleep, which causes them to sleep late into the day when they should be active.  We do this for long enough, and we get used to it.  If this is the case, then I offer this as something to consider in the long run.  In youth especially, we have the Qi to avoid natural wisdom, but this only lasts for so long.  

Our body, energy, and mind move in the same rhythm as the universe.  When we live according to the natural cycles of time, we (microcosm) begin to mirror the universe (macrocosm), revealing our fundamental interconnectedness. 

Although it is helpful to learn the natural tendencies of each time of day, it is more important to actually feel them.  If we can sense the Qi of Horse Hour, then it becomes a source of wisdom.  Horse hour is a time for productivity; hence, I am writing and am compelled toward activity. 

I hope that this guide helps you tune into the natural rhythms of life.  Here is a basic outline of the rhythm of the day (remember this changes according to the 5 elements, so eventually you will feel the difference between a fire dog and water dog hour)

Chen—Dragon: Yang Earth—7-9am (3rd Moon)

We shall begin with Dragon Hour from 7 to 9 am.  Dragon is BIG YANG, associated with the rising sun.  In the Chinese Zodiac, Dragon Qi is considered unlimited potential; it is all the animal energies combined into one mysterious, ineffable potentiality.  Energetically, this is the most powerful and active time of the day.  You should always be up, awake, and entering into action by Dragon Hour.  This is probably difficult for people who like to sleep in.  Actually, if you investigate your experience, you should be naturally compelled out of bed during this time, regardless of whether or not you are a “morning bird.”  Since I was young, I have never been able to sleep in past 9.  This is also when our digestion is most active.  We can digest and assimilate anything during Dragon Hour, so this is the best time for a nourishing breakfast.  This is the time to get the day in motion.  Begin your day by Dragon Hour, and everything will flow along naturally.

Si—Snake: Yin Fire—9-11am (4th Moon)

After BIG YANG comes BIG YIN in the form of Snake Hour from 9 to 11 am.  In the Chinese Zodiac, Snake Qi is associated with the unseen, the unknown, and with the empty nature of apparent phenomena.  After the big energetic launch, Dragon Hour, the universe naturally recedes and opens into a space of self-reflection, without which Dragon Qi can become too ambitious, and we may exhaust ourselves during the day.  Snake Hour is a tremendous open transparency in which we are able to see through our ambitions to the fact that Yang always turns back into Yin.  Everything we work to achieve will fall apart, so the rest of the day should be filled with this awareness.  Once we get our day going during Dragon Hour, we must slow down and reflect on who and what we are and on what we are doing.  Snake hour should be a time for mystical self-reflection, revelation, and preparation for the rest of the day.  Without taking this time to reflect, the rest of the day can become linear, and we may be fooled into the notion that we “progress” and that time is going somewhere other than around and around in eternal circles.   

Wu—Horse: Yang Fire—11am—1pm (5th Moon)

After this necessary self-reflection, we are ready for Yin to turn back into Yang, and we enter Horse hour, the time for productivity, industry, action, and energetic independence.  From 11am to 1 pm, we should naturally feel compelled toward productivity.  This is when we should “work,” in terms of physical labor, building, construction, production, and so on.  In the Chinese Zodiac, Horse Qi is associated with thoughtless action in the best sense.  Horse is the wisdom of manifestation, of “doing,” and of embodiment.  Horse is associated with craft and skill.  If you are physically active and productive during Horse Hour, you will live much longer and not exhaust yourself.  This is also the other time of day when our digestion is most active, so it is the best time for a hearty lunch.  
  
Wei—Goat: Yin Earth—1-3pm (6th Moon)

Once we have completed our most vigorous and productive activity, Yang turns back to Yin, and we enter the refining and socializing Goat Hour from 1-3pm.  In the Chinese Zodiac, Goat Qi is associated with the “herd,” with social order, cooperation, compromising, harmony, justice, fairness, and so on, and it is also associated with aesthetics, art, and beauty.  Goat Hour, then, is the time to work and be with others and cultivate friendship and teamwork.  This is the time to get together and do things in groups and to refine and adjust the productivity of Horse Hour.  Once we create something, we must step back and adjust our creation to accord with social context and welfare.  Building a table is useless if we do not sit down to eat, and what good is eating alone if your friends are hungry?  Goat Hour is also the time for art and aesthetics.  It is a time to paint, write, sing, or just stare out into the landscape and contemplate humanity.   
     
Shen—Monkey: Yang Metal—3-5pm (7th Moon)

After the refining Goat Hour, Yin turns back to Yang, and we move forward into Monkey Hour from 3-5pm.  In the Chinese Zodiac, Monkey Qi is associated with planning, strategizing, projecting, adapting, and imagining.  Monkey Hour is the time to look forward to the next day or week and plan ahead.  In terms of work, it is the time to cease productivity and to shift into imagination.  This is the only time of day you should actually project into the future; plan ahead, and then drop it.  In the wild, Monkeys are always scanning the environment for danger and anticipating threats.  During Monkey Hour, our Qi naturally anticipates the end of the day and the transition into night.  So it is a time of adaptation; soon we must head home, but before we do, we must digest the experience of the day, adapt accordingly, and anticipate what may come.  Monkey Qi is also playful, so this is the time to end the seriousness of work, “quitting time,” when you should joke and have fun with co-workers before heading home. 

You—Rooster: Yin Metal—5-7pm (8th Moon)

From Yang back to Yin, we receded into Rooster Hour, from 5-7pm, the time of completion.  In China, this time of day is associated with “coming home to roost,” the time when all the chickens and animals make their way back to the barn.  It is the “crepuscular hour,” the transition from day to night.  In the Chinese Zodiac, Rooster Qi is associated with completion, precision, competition, and confidence.  This is the time to go home.  Once home, this is the time to take pride and have confidence in what you have done, to reflect and analyze.  This is the Yin hour of digestion, the time for tea and a light supper, when we can refine and extract the most nutrients towards the end of the day.  If there is a time to hang out with friends at the Pub, this is it; Rooster is associated with bravado, and with the kind of socializing that relates to the “pecking order.”    
    
Xu—Dog: Yang Earth—7-9pm (9th Moon)

Once we return home, we move from Yin back to Yang into Dog Hour, from 7-9pm, the family hour.  In China, they say if you are home and with your family by Dog hour, you will live a long and happy life.  In the Chinese Zodiac, Dog Qi is associated with loyalty, dedication, faithfulness, and protection.  By Dog Hour, you should be home and enjoying social time with the family.  This is an active Yang hour, the time to connect and socialize with those closest to you.  The family dinner, ideally, should happen late during Rooster Hour, and now this is the time to enjoy being home, to relax, read, watch TV, talk, play with the kids, play with the dog, and forget about the troubles of the day.  Since we have domesticated dogs, they have been associated with protection, the family dog often staying awake until everyone is safe and asleep.  Dog Hour is the first active phase of the night, when we cultivate vigilance and family loyalty.  If we live alone, it is a great time to cultivate the same qualities with close friends.

Hai—Pig: Yin Water—9-11pm (10th Moon)

Now that we are home and have actively unwound during Dog Hour, Yang turns back to Yin and we relax, sinking down into Pig Hour.  In the Chinese Zodiac, Pig Qi is associated with sensuality, relaxation, and enjoyment.  It is the time when our Qi sinks down and prepares for sleep; Pig is the falling asleep hour.  Associated with enjoyment of the senses, this is the time for sex, pleasure, and honesty (pillow talk) with our partner.  This is the time to put on pajamas, relax in bed, turn out the lights, and fall asleep.  If you should be up and awake by Dragon Hour, then you should always be in bed by Pig Hour—you will live much longer.  It is the natural time of the day for falling asleep, which our culture rebels against (which is fine every once and a while; pig hour is great for parties).  Staying up past this hour on a regular basis, according to Chinese Astrology, is a surefire way to get out of sync with the natural rhythm of life and cause illness, because the next hour is the beginning of the dream and sleep phase.  If we do not respect sleep and follow the natural rhythm of the sun and moon, then we do not accord with the energy available for regeneration during the next few cycles, and our sleep is not restorative.  

Zi—Rat: Yang Water—11pm-1am (11th Moon)

From Yin relaxation, we move forward into Yang sleep, the Rat Hour, from 11pm to 1am.  By this time we should have entered into the first stage of sleep, related to the Rat.  In the Chinese Zodiac, Rat Qi is associated with analysis, editing, and resolution.  It is the wisdom of the compound nature of things, of taking things apart.  This phase of sleep is light, and we experience resolving dreams where we edit our experience from the previous day.  Our dreams during this time reflect ordinary life, and our subconscious takes this time to digest our incomplete and fractured experience.  In a Rat dream, you may get in your car and drive to work, turn to Cynthia in the next desk to find that she’s orange.  This is the best time to enter consciously into the dream state, into dream/sleep Yoga.  Rat Hour is a preparation for deep dreamless sleep in which we process all the surface details of life; it is when we can make use of shamanic dreaming and dreams of portent.  If we miss this time for Rat dreaming, then we may repress the opportunity for mental digestion/editing.  

Chou—Ox: Yin Earth—1-3am (12th Moon)

After the editing period of Yang Rat sleep, we sink into Yin sleep, the Ox Hour, from 1am to 3am.  Ox Hour is the time for deep, dreamless sleep.  In deep sleep we truly rest and rejuvenate.  In the Chinese Zodiac, Ox Qi is associated with the return to origin, with slow, steady, uncompromising Yin.  During this time, we should have no consciousness and return to complete “I don’t know.”  This is the best time to sink into the deep dark unconscious depths, which can eventually turn to Path Dreaming or Clear Light Yoga.  If you are awake during Ox Hour, you miss the greatest opportunity for deep rejuvenation and restoration of the body, energy, and mind.  It is important that we return to this deep “I don’t know” in order to re-attune ourselves to the natural cycle and start over again.

Yin—Tiger: Yang Wood—3-5am (1st Moon)

Emerging from the darkness of Yin Ox sleep, we break out of the murky depths into Yang Tiger Sleep, from 3-5am.  In the Chinese Zodiac, Tiger Qi is associated with the daring, unconventional, fearless, inspirational, and symbolic.  This is the second phase of Yang sleep.  During the Rat Hour, we edit from the day and sink into Ox dreamlessness.  During Tiger Hour, we emerge from the dreamless state to express wild, symbolic, creative, and fearless dreaming.  This is when we can fly and visit other worlds; this is when we have “weird” dreams, the kind that make no sense whatsoever.  Tiger dreams are a pure expression of the creative impulse of the unconscious.  After the rejuvenation of Ox Hour, Tiger Hour is when we are naturally capable of lucid dreams and dreams of clarity, when we are asleep and know we are dreaming and have the full capacity to explore consciousness.  According to Chinese Medicine, when we sleep, our "Hun Spirit" leaves the body; the Hun is the body in which we dream.  Tiger Hour is when it can “astral project.”  If we are awake during Tiger hour, we miss the opportunity for the full exploration of dreams and for the fulfillment of our true creative potential.   
  
Mao—Rabbit: Yin Wood—5-7am (2nd Moon)

After the playful Tiger sleep, we transition from Yang to Yin again for the final phase of the day and the transition into the next, Rabbit Hour, from 5-7am.  In the Chinese Zodiac, Rabbits are associated with the Moon, with intuition, interpretation, and the spirit world.  Rabbits are most active during this “crepuscular hour,” this transition into day.  The Rabbit is associated with the early dawn, when the first soft light begins to shine.  It is a misty, magical, gentle hour, when the world is alive with this “bunny” energy.  This is the time of day when we slowly and gently emerge from our den.  It is the time to rise and prepare for Dragon Hour, the true start of the day.  Rabbit Hour is a transition, in which our intuition and interpretation is activated, the best time to digest, record, and interpret our dreams.  It is also the best time for morning sex, as Rabbits are associated with reproduction.  Traditionally, this is also the best time for meditation and Yoga, so it is best to wake, practice, sit, and begin our day in this space of subtle yet gentle intuition.  From here, the cycle starts all over again with Dragon Hour.

According to Chinese Astrology, this cycle is already the natural tendency of our life.  If you are in touch with your natural condition, then this should feel natural.  This is something to experiment with.  It is best  to feel into each hour and actually experience the Qi associated with the time of day, so you can go with it rather than against it.  It is difficult for us “modern professionals” with such demanding lifestyles, but this is the way humans have lived for thousands of years.  And remember, the view teaches that the cycles of time are cyclical, like the Sun and Moon.  There is no “progression” in time; we do not move in a straight line, but rather we alternate (Yin/Yang) and go around and around in an eternal procession.  The more we move with the natural flow of the Universe, the more we begin to mirror and eventually experience our natural state.

Certain aspects of Daoist and Chinese Cosmology have become “popular.”   When I mention Yin and Yang, Qi, or Feng Shui, most people nod their head.  However, many students, including myself, are too eager to abandon these basic notions to get to the “details,” the important part where we actually know stuff. 

The engineering/mechanistic view of reality tells us that the universe is some kind of Swiss Watch, and that the significance of the universe is in the details.  If we can examine all the details and measure everything, somehow this is supposed to produce insight.  In the Chinese view, this is non-sense, like taking a watch apart to find the time. 

Basic teachings are the key to wisdom.  If we rush to expertise, we become hysterical maniacs.  Master the basics, and you will flourish.  
    
The following two blogs will zoom out again and continue to examine “the big picture,” the basics, what is called cosmology, the view of Yin-Yang and the Five Elements.  To understand anything Chinese, we must understand these teachings in cosmological terms, meaning we must understand how they relate to our actual experience.    

But first, I must say something about View Teachings and Astrology.  Liu Ming made it a point to emphasize View Teachings.  Why?  We, as modern post-Christian secularized industrial engineer merchants, are far too eager to adopt techniques and methods from Asian Wisdom Traditions, as if the methods, the “doing stuff” part holds the key to “evolution/progress.”  Expertise without wisdom roots is bankrupt and will fail.  We must ask basic questions, again and again.  If we do not start from a basic understanding of humanity, our expertise will lead us to aggression. 

The ten million-billion things all fall into two categories—Yin and Yang.  Forget the ten-billion; learn the two. 

I have been studying and attempting to practice Asian religions for more than fifteen years now, and I have almost nothing to report.  I have learned, however, that all methods, mindfulness for example, come from a certain “view” about reality.  Furthermore, all methods are intended to have certain fruition based on that view.  Without view, methods are meaningless and will at best produce a kind of neutral effect.  If I have learned anything quantifiable, I have learned that methods are a dime a dozen.  There are literally thousands of techniques of meditation, yoga, and divination.  In short—if we practice a method without adopting the view, that method will not give its intended fruition; it may even be harmful. 

I recently asked a friend interested in learning Tantric practice what he thought a human being was, and he replied, “a piece of shit.”  And he is not to blame; our culture tells us that human beings are basically bad, and our popular media and Religion certainly reflect this view.  However, the fundamental view of Tantra states that human beings are self-liberating expressions of a primordially pure enlightened essence (which is a little too profound for Daoism).  If you believe that humans are basically sinful, bad, broken, greedy, and so on, then you can practice Tantric Methods, visualize chakras and channels, hold your breath, squeeze your perineum, and chant mantras for a million years and never experience liberation, because your view and your method are mismatched.  When we study view teachings, we fundamentally alter our way of relating to experience, and this opens the space for transformation from the inside out. 

If we adopt method without adopting view, then we supply the method with the view we already have, conscious or unconscious.  In the case of Americans, this often places the individual and their problems (psychology) at the center of the universe.  In this case, Astrology and Meditation become a new vocabulary for our own self importance.  Chinese Astrology should make us gentle people and free us from the hysteria of self hatred and self cherishing.  In the Chinese View, no individual is significant, and the goal of Astrology is to discover what we have in common, not what makes us different. 

In the Chinese view, Astrology should never be used as a form of aggression, smashing our afflictions and murdering our obstructions to get one-up on the universe.  Neither should the information be used to condescend and exalt us over others.  Nor should it be used to obsess over details, as if the exact position of the north node of the moon will give us “answers.” 

The View Teachings of Chinese Astrology, then, are of central importance to the practice and to receiving a reading.  To make use of it, we must understand Chinese Cosmological View.  It is easy to learn technical vocabulary and techniques; it is not so easy to change our view.  And to be clear, view is not philosophy; we consider view as if it were describing reality as it actually is.  Philosophy is an option—people should be kind; view is not an option—all that is compound is impermanent.  

Finally, we must become aware of our eclecticism, our mixing of views.  If you are an ex-Christian scientist who now believes humans are chemical skin bags, or a cultural Jew turned Buddhist, or a California Hindu-Yoga-Buddhist-Taoist-Whatever...this will have an effect on your practice.  Eventually, eclecticism turns into something, usually an orthodoxy, but most often it just turns to confusion.   

So far, I have discussed these view teachings by exploring the questions—what is a human being and what is the Universe?  Within these basic questions, I have begun to explore fundamental view teachings on Character, Freedom, and Fate.  I have also been hinting at the “Big Picture,” by discussing Hun Tun, the view that reality is an unknowable chaos, and that all we can observe is temporary cyclical patterns of movement.  But how do these view teachings relate to our actual experience?

Take a moment and ask yourself—what do I actually experience? 

The Chinese would answer—Qi.  What is Qi?  Qi is not substance; it is non-abiding movement.  We experience movement, and all movement has a direction.

Modern new-age spirituality often talks about oneness.  And the term non-dual often implies a kind of pretentious sophistication—that non-duality is the “highest” teaching.  However, oneness and non-dual in the Chinese view are meaningless and say nothing about our actual experience.  What we experience is dual movement alternating in a polarity.  Like the poles of a magnet, this duality is inextricable yet defined by two-ness. 

Life is splendidly dualistic.  In most traditions, dualism is problematic.  Duality is somehow a kind of evil, a misunderstanding, a delusion, rather than something that actually defines the natural world.  Duality is the closest image we have to the natural world, and it is not mistaken.   
  
This alternating image of the natural world is known as Yin and Yang, which is probably the most famous Chinese idea.  To understand anything Chinese we must understand Yin-Yang.  As I mentioned in the beginning, our tendency to obsess over details often causes us to overlook the big picture, but I assure you—if you study Yin-Yang theory, it will irreversibly change your life.  It describes the whole of our experience, not through details, but through understanding that everything, absolutely everything, is in an alternating process of change. 

The Yin-Yang symbol is now plastered on everything from surfboards to sauerkraut labels, so the idea is at least familiar.  The popular understanding, however, tends to miss the point.  Popular literature often splits Yin and Yang into two lists.  On the Yin side you see words like—negative, dark, contracting, descending, cold, heavy, and substantive.  On the Yang side you see the opposite terms—positive, light, expanding, ascending, hot, light, and active.  And this is all true.  But it is not the point. 

I once mentioned Yin-Yang in conversation, and a friend asked “which one is push and which one is pull?”  The Chinese answer is yes!  In other words, it depends.  We describe Yin and Yang only to get a basic understanding of their qualities.  But they are a continuum.  Our experience flows along an alternating continuum.  This continuum is circular.  We can identify something as Yin, and this means it is turning into Yang.  We can describe something as Yang, which means it is turning into Yin.  They constantly transform into one another as a kind of cyclical wave pattern.    

Let’s take “cold” as an example.  We can generically identify cold as Yin.  But no temperature is static.  A refrigerator can maintain a cold temperature, but this is strenuous (Yang), requiring energy.  Cold in this case is in a tenuous state of Yang produced through effort.  If the refrigerator breaks down, and it wants to, cold disperses and temperature warms.  The heating process in this case is Yin because it is the natural release of strenuous energy.  In other words, Yin and Yang cannot be pinned down in absolute terms like hot/cold; nothing can.  Everything is not how it appears.  Each appearance can be temporarily described as Yin or Yang on the Yin-Yang continuum.   

Our actual moment to moment experience also alternates along the same kind of wave pattern.  Any experience you can identify is turning into another kind of experience.  Identifying confusion, for example, is clarity.  Our emotions are never static. 

We experience suffering, discontent, and disease when we believe our experience is static.  But our experience is never stable; nothing is stable.  We exhaust ourselves trying to make things stable and secure when their natural state alternates.  This is the true wisdom of Yin-Yang.  If we are upset, we are actually moving in the direction of contentment, only sometimes we have to go a little further down before we start moving up again.  We may be elated in the thralls of a peak experience, but this means we are moving towards depression; you can only go “up” for so long.  Experiences like happy and sad are identifiable through their contrasting opposite, and we vacillate through emotions all the time.  The more we understand our experience as naturally alternating the more we can relax.  Knowing that sadness is already moving in the direction of happy, we can learn to enjoy both, for they are each natural and tell us something about our experience.  We develop equanimity only when we accept that nothing is static and that all movement is circular; we then begin to host the whole process.  

In Chinese Astrology, this movement is called self-resolving.  Yin-Yang is the basic pattern of movement, and it is a self-resolving pattern.  This means there are no “problems” to fix.   Everything coming apart is also coming together.  If we have this big view, we do not need to panic when our life falls apart (panicking a little is okay).  Something needs to fall apart for other things to come together.  This is the natural cycle of everything from the vastness of galaxies to our very breath.\

We do not try to inhale; exhalation naturally resolves with inhalation—this is Yin-Yang.   You cannot find a distinct point when inhalation becomes exhalation (go ahead, try!) because they are a continuum.

All that being said, we still have Freedom, meaning we can resist natural cycles.  Our culture has an immense prejudice toward Yang in the form of activity/productivity.  This prejudice, I think, comes from a kind of general unnamed anxiety, stemming from many diverse factors.  Christian linear time/original sin, mechanistic God is dead scientism, rugged mercantile individualism, 200+ years of war and aggression…fear and anxiety lurks beneath the surface of American culture.  Our culture does not support us (my Dad once received a $300,000 bill for a two week hospital stay), and we rarely support one another (who are your neighbors?). 

I don’t know about you, but I am exhausted just being an American.  Our culture operates on the notion that progress is infinite.  We are constantly trying to “improve” everything, and we are expected to be “productive” all the time, reflected in the standard 40 hour work week, which depletes us, leaving little to no time for anything but recovering from exhaustion.  No one can work 40 hours a week and be healthy.  Everything we do is work—we work at work, work on our relationships, work on our bodies, work on spiritual practice, work hard play hard.  And we are at war with everything, trying to destroy cancer with aggression in the fight against death.  All of this is excessive Yang, and it’s exhausting.

Because we have Freedom, we can resist Yin-Yang through Yang force, and we can resist our Fate, but not for long.  Our excessive productivity depletes us and causes all kinds of illness and disease.  Our standard of health is often, “just get me back to work.”  Yin is weakness, and we hate weakness.  Trying to be strong, strong, strong all the time is like a bridge with no sway; it will crumble in an earthquake. 

According to Classical Yin-Yang theory, they are not equal, but they are a balance.  Americans want everything to be equal, so we exalt yang.  The universe, however, is about 98% Yin and 2% Yang, which is just enough to make it move.  Very little actually requires effort.  Most of what we do requires no effort—digesting, circulating blood, breathing, thinking, hearing, seeing, and so on.  The planets revolve around the sun with no effort.  These are natural process which the Chinese call Ziran, which means “of itself so,” in other words, Yin.  We barely need to “do” anything; we are already flowing in a spontaneously arising self resolving universe.  And everything that we identify with is actually a complete mystery of spontaneity. 

I have no idea how I form thoughts, how I speak, how I remember.  It would take a thousand years to describe in technical language the complexity of digesting a sandwich, and yet I do it without effort.  Yang is the tiny push of a ball at the top of a hill that sends it rolling.  The key to balance is learning when to apply just a little effort, which sets things in motion.  But if we are applying effort all the time, we actually deplete Yang, which is limited (2%), and we become ill, sometimes so ill that death is the only Yin resolution.       

Yin-Yang is both movement and rhythm, and movement implies that nothing abides.  There is no “thing” that moves.  How could there be?  Qi is not a substance, a thing that moves—it is movement itself.  Yin tends toward substantive, and in the process of this tendency it is already alternating toward dispersal.  The constant alternating quality of movement is cyclic and rhythmic, and there is no end to this rhythm.  Our culture has a linear view of time, and we are therefore terrified of death.  Any tradition which has a beginning has an end.  We imagine that in death we somehow “stop.”  But nothing stops.  And there is no first movement, because there would have to be something before it to generate it, ad-infinitum.  And no amount of time deregulates the movement from Yin to Yang; the sun may be ancient, but its energy will disperse. 

So how does this all apply to Astrology?  First, our Character tends towards Yin or Yang.  I am a Yang Fire Tiger, for example.  Meaning, I tend towards the Yang impulse.  Second, our Fate has Yin and Yang aspects.  Meaning, some things we are fated to “do,” and some things are fated to happen of themselves.  In general, our Fate cycles according to Yin-Yang.  But these are the “details.”  Without understanding the basic view that EVERYTHING is Yin-Yang, then trying to understand our Character and Fate is crazy making.  We have to ask ourselves these basic questions again and again. 

Every possible detail falls into either Yin or Yang, and the two are always turning into one another.  We cannot make use of Astrology and fate calculation if we are hysterical over details.  We study Astrology to see the cyclic pattern of our life, and Yin-Yang is the fundamental dynamic of all patterns.  Without Yin-Yang we get lost in the details, and we miss out on true wisdom.
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In my next blog, I will discuss how the Yin-Yang cycle further differentiates into the five-phases/elements.  See you then.     

In this blog, I would like to answer the question—what is the “universe” from the perspective of Polestar Astrology?  In doing so, I would like to present the “big picture” of Astrology and how this view helps us to follow Astrology as a “wisdom path.”

The “Universe” is UNKNOWABLE.  The Chinese tradition refers to the unknowable universe as Dao although that is not a direct translation (Dao has no English equivalent).  A famous translation of the Dao De Jing goes something like, “that which can be known is not the Dao.”  For those suffering from expertise, this may be disconcerting.  Expertise is probably the biggest troublemaker in the world—assumed knowledge (especially of other people’s experience) is far more dangerous than conscious ignorance.  One of my all time favorite quotes comes from a Christian mystic, Bernadette Roberts, “When you have learned it all and lived it thoroughly, then you had better get ready to have it all collapse when you discover the highest wisdom is that you know nothing.” 

When we examine our experience, we find ourselves in a Cosmic Soup, in what the Chinese call Hun Tun.  Within this Cosmic Soup, all Time and Space are an incomprehensible chaos.  When we examine our experience closely, we are confronted with irresolvable, unending confusions brought about by analysis (scientism).  In other words, the universe, the world, and our “self” appear to exist, but this appearance is dubious.  When we actually try to find the objects referred to by these terms, we cannot.  We find no particular time, place, or self.  Rather, we find an infinite number of temporarily compounded “things,” each made up of smaller things, ad-infinitum, in the flow of ordinary experience, which is processional.  And the universe, or Dao, as some kind of “Ultimate Reality,” is beyond conceptual elaboration, beyond the grasp of human thought.  It is far too “big” to understand (duh!), which is the same as saying the universe is made up of things too small to understand.   
 
Paradoxically, this Hun Tun, this irresolvable chaos is the source of every thing and every being.  When we relax our need to know, our need to “figure everything out,” (scientism) we open the door to wisdom.  When we embrace reality as incomprehensible, our experience opens up to what we can actually observe—temporary patterns of energy/light (qi).  Our actual experience tells us that we are a weaving of “qi strands,” light waves.  We are like a candle flame, a stream of energy that “appears” temporarily, displaying a certain pattern, which we call “Me/I”  The world, too, appears to be solid and stable.  But under close examination, the world is revealed as nothing but an appearance of cycling energy.  What we know as the world, other people, events, and so on are merely the tendency of qi to look like “stuff,” crystallized by the conceptual process of labeling the unknowable.

I often make fun of western science because it seeks to "prove" through observation, and in trying to do so it proves itself wrong every five minutes.  In the Chinese view, everything is fundamentally empty and ultimately unknowable, and therefore saying anything "conclusive" based on statistical data is foolishness.  Wisdom Science does not operate from the assumption that anything reliable can be said about anything.  The only reliable constant is change, and the patterns of change are all we seek to describe, and even these are not reliable as concepts.  You may get cancer, but this will resolve in death.  You may die, but this will resolve in birth. All we can say about health is "for whom, and when."  

The view of Chinese Astrology, then, has two dimensions—the dual and the non-dual.  Buddhism calls these the two truths, the ultimate and the relative. 

In the non-dual view, we practice divination (fate calculation) in order to observe things “as they are,” to look into the fundamental nature of things, to break down our compulsion to predict, fix, or improve particular aspects of the limitless sea of Dao.  Rather, we observe these patterns as compound and processional in order to recognize that we are too.  The constant observation of flowing patterns, then, undermines our notions of a solid world and of an abiding self.  When these notions fall away, what remains is the ever flowing nameless cosmos.

In this revelation, we experience ourselves and the world as a phantasm of light (qi).

This revelation, however, comes through the dual view of Astrology.  In other words, what we divine through astrology is a dual (relative) vision, the dance of microcosm and macrocosm.  As soon as we begin to name the patterns of qi, we separate them from the Chaos of Hun Tun and from the nameless Dao. 

In the view of Chinese Astrology, the dual and the non-dual are not opposed; in fact, the non-dual contains the dual, and by investigating the weaving of the cosmic matrix we find ourselves in, we “unravel our fate.”  Hun Tun is not vanquished, it is embraced, and we agree to be swept along in the cycles in which we are already flowing.  In other words, our experience is already flowing, and by naming the patterns we find ourselves in, we define a sense of personal fate within the greater cycles.  Through identifying our personal fate, our “karma,” we define a path composed of smaller cycles that we call health (our alchemical body) and happiness (our relationships).

By studying the dual vision of the universe, and by creating a personal sense of fate and freedom, we learn how to disentangle our qi from karmic debts (repeating patterns of depletion) and aggression (false views of a solid world and an abiding self).  This disentanglement is called the resolution of fate.  In the resolution of fate, we experience what the universe, the Dao, actually is—freedom, with no particular agenda. 

This freedom appears to the conceptual mind as the irresolvable chaos I mentioned in the beginning, and because of our anxiety, we try to pin down and describe everything in order to get "control"(modern science).  But when we are resolved of fate, this chaos relates openly with order, and the dual and non-dual are no longer experienced as two.  In this, we experience our original nature, devoid of self/other, and yet freely generating character and fate.   We find ourselves perfectly situated in the magnificent matrix of Dao—no self, no problem. 

The resolution of fate is called “Great Completion,” the realization that everything is already harmonious, in Tibetan - Dzogchen, the “Great Perfection.”  The universe (Dao) consists of cycles of fate (karma) moving from apparent Chaos to Great Completion and back again.  These cycles, as I have mentioned in a previous blog, are self-resolving.  Meaning, the universe is characterized by a kind of balance (yin/yang) which is self-correcting.  Yin is always moving in the direction of yang, and yang is hurling in the direction of yin.  Hence the famous yin-yang symbol depicted as one circle.  Even when our life appears to be chaos, it is moving toward order.  Completion comes when we recognize that perfection includes both chaos and order.   

From the non-dual perspective, the universe is open space full of dancing light.  From the dual perspective, this light vibrates/flows in cycles and “appears” as patterns, which we call “things,” people, places, planets, kittens, flowers, and so on.  This experience of light, however, is unknowable.  But it is an experience.  In fact, Great Completion is demonstrated when we become we are—light having an experience of light.  Those who experience Great Completion "light body" and leave behind no corpse, as Liu Ming’s teacher demonstrated.  The Body of Light, however, is not a special experience; it is what the universe eventually does in the cycles of time.     

Astrology as a wisdom path begins from the view that reality is an unknowable experience.  We practice divination and study the cycles of change, time, space, character, and fate to undermine our notions of a solid world and of an abiding, separate self.  So to answer, the original question—what is the universe?  Chinese Astrology replies—unknowable.  What we can “know” is only what we can observe, which is nothing but temporary appearance patterns.

In the following blogs, I invite you to come with me as I examine more of these temporary appearances.  The Chinese Tradition of Polestar Astrology offers a complete cosmology, a complete picture of what it means to be a human being on earth.  In the next blog, I will explore the concept of personal freedom through the “Five Element/Phase” cycle, what is called our “Inner Element.”     

Before I delve further into the specific view teachings of Chinese Astrology, I need to backtrack and define why Polestar Astrology, in particular, is relevant to modern life.  To do this, I will explore the question—what is Fate?

Disassociation and purposelessness are among the most troubling epidemics of modern technological culture.  Now, more than ever, human beings dissociate from their natural environment, from one another, from history, from culture, and from their own embodied human experience.  Disassociated from natural cycles, we consume in excess and throw everything out of balance.   We have become a society of floating heads; we connect wirelessly, but in reality we seem to connect very little. 

Our culture, especially in America, has lost any sense of coherent or cohesive values.  As a culture, we are inundated with confusing, ever-changing ideas from the shrine of Scientism, which changes its mind every few hours, presenting us with contradictory and often conflicting views about everything.  Most of us reject our religious heritage, and if we don’t, we tend to prosthelytize others or judge them silently.  As a culture, we argue over just about everything, confusing each other with bad ideas, and, unfortunately, corporatism and consumerism provide the most coherent value structures in American society. 

Our hard fought individualism has given us freedom, privilege, and comfort but no idea about what to do with our freedom.  Because of this, many people lack what I will call “Life Purpose.”  We’re not quite sure why we were born, and we spend a great deal of time wasting our energy in pursuit of an outdated and unsustainable model of success.  Most of us exhaust ourselves trying to survive our own life.   

The American Dream died (probably sometime in the late 80’s), and its ghost is dangerous.  And yet the whole world tries to achieve it.  I have been to over twenty countries; I have lived in Asia, and I have seen the whole world struggling to have “everything,” or in some cases anything at all.  We want career, kids, family, money, two cars, a house, money in the bank, and so on.  If we do achieve this, it is often because of privilege, plain and simple.  Failing to achieve this, many become despondent and lost, and many blame themselves.  And who’s to blame us for feeling this way? 

The view of modern culture (or lack thereof) lags far behind the reality of our actual situation.  We cannot have it all because resources are limited.  And actually, we are not supposed to have it all. 
In the Chinese view, we are supposed to have what we are fated for, and very few are fated for "everything."  We’re supposed to work together and support one another to balance and create social harmony.  What one lacks, another is fated for in abundance, and through social order and the distribution of resources we keep the balance.  We have enough resources to feed, clothe, and shelter everyone on Earth, and yet we do not because we are disassociated from Natural Wisdom and one another. 

According to the Chinese view, we waste tremendous energy and life force (qi) trying to achieve things we are not fated for.  So first, according to Chinese Astrology, you have something called “fate.”  This may be news to you, and you may even object, which is quite normal.  So I will say upfront that fate is not determinism.

Fate means opportunity.  Obviously, we all have different opportunities in life based on where, when, and to whom we were born, meaning our opportunity is Astrological.  Furthermore, the circumstances surrounding our opportunities are much bigger than we can grasp.  Our actual situation is enormous. 
Some people seem lucky—in the right place at the right time.  Some people are phenomenally talented and yet live lives of quiet desperation with little to no opportunity.  The American Dream tells us we can “pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps,” and yet we all know this is insane.  Through no amount of hard work will I be a center in the NBA. 

The Chinese answer to this paradox is fate.  We are each fated to have a certain potential for experience and opportunity in life, and this potential manifests or unfolds based on the timeliness of our birth.  

Fate (opportunity), according to the Chinese view, is rhythmical, cyclical, and mathematical.  The Ancients observed the cycles of time, space, and nature for thousands of years and discovered within these cycles a number of different patterns.  One of these cycles generates what the Chinese call Character, which I will discuss in a future blog.  Another, which I will describe here, is related to Fate.  In Polestar Astrology, we call these cycles “Currents of Fate.”

The Currents of Fate are related to mathematical calculations based on the Polestar, or Emperor Star, the only star in the night sky which does not appear to move.  If you visit the homepage of my website, you will see the Emperor Star in time-lapsed photography, the heavens swirling around it.  Every few thousand years, the Polestar changes; it was Vega, and now it is Polaris.  Every culture on earth since time immemorial has used the Polestar for navigation and, more importantly, for Astrology. 

After thousands of years of observation, the Chinese noticed that the constellations in the night sky swirled in patterns around the Emperor Star, and that these patterns were cyclic, rhythmic, and mathematic.  Furthermore, they noticed that the circumstances or opportunities of human life were intimately related to these patterns in a predictable way.  These patterns are energetic expressions of vibrating light, and so are we.

Imagine that the energy or light of the entire universe (qi) flows in big cyclical patterns related to the relative position of heavenly bodies within space.  From our position on earth, we are related mathematically to one of many intertwined and interrelated swirling patterns of energy within the galaxy and greater universe.  Every planet, then, would determine different but related patterns.  From Earth, our patterns are determined or calculated by the fixed position of the Polestar.  The patterns observed shift every hour, every year, generating and concluding different phases in the cycles of time and energy (qi).  This flow shifts from one pattern to another in a predictable way—sunrise, sunset.    

Imagine now that the energy of the universe is not disconnected, cold, insentient energy, but rather that the whole universe is an intimate web of living, breathing, cycling energy.  Finally, consider the possibility that you are also an expression of this basic living energy, and that you are fundamentally interconnected to these greater cycles and patterns which operate beyond the grasp of your conscious mind.  No definable point of separation between yourself and the universe can be found; you are a breathing pulsation of the entire matrix of Life.

According to Polestar Astrology, when you were born, you emerged as an expression of the same pattern of energy the universe was exuding at that moment.  Imagine that in each moment the universe is exuding or “doing” a certain pattern.  At the moment of birth, the pattern of the universe, which you are fundamentally connected to, patterns you.  In other words, you become a living expression of that pattern.  Everything that “began” in that moment also expresses that pattern.  These patterns radiate outward, containing and relating to one another like a Russian Doll, and they express a continuum from microcosm to macrocosm. 

Imagine that in the moment of birth you are plugged into one of these streams, these current of cycling energy, forever connected to it temporally, and that this stream is already in motion, set to unfold as a rhythmic pattern, and it will carry you along in it like a flowing river.  As you flow through life, this pattern of energy will unwind and create the potential for certain kinds of experience to manifest.  This potential for experience, based on these patterns of energy, are what the Chinese Tradition calls Fate.  These Currents of Fate are finite in number (518, 400) but infinite in their potential, variety, and multiplicity of expression.

Have I confused you?  Not to worry.  To simplify, you have something called “Fate,” which is determined by the timeliness of your birth, by whatever streaming pattern of energy you “popped” into. 

So how is this related to life purpose?  Polestar Astrology is also called “Fate Calculation.”  A Polestar Astrology Session reads the particular “pattern” of your birth and can tell you the nature of how this pattern may unfold.  Remember, it is not fortunetelling, it cannot predict the future, but it can tell you the possibilities within the container of your “pattern.”  The value of Polestar Astrology comes through dialogue, meaning the Astrologer provides interpretations of Fate, but it is up to you to define that meaning in terms of your own experience.   

The Chinese Tradition is very practical, coming from Confucian values.  Fate, then, is read in relation to practical human life.  In a Natal reading, I look at family, marriage/romantic partners, children, money, career/work in the world, and pleasure.  And in the Chinese view, your fate lies within these categories.  And while fate is spread throughout these categories, our major fate, what we are here to “do,” lies within one of them.  Some people are fated to be parents, and that is the most important thing they are fated to do.  The rest is unimportant in the big picture and may even constellate around parenthood.  Some are fated for career but not everyone, which may terrify Americans.  Some are just here to enjoy themselves. 

Knowing this, Polestar Astrology can take an immense pressure off of the confusion of modern technological life.  First, if we lack direction it can give it to us.  Polestar Astrology can tell us, quite plainly, what we were born to do.  Polestar Astrology provides the big picture, the context for our entire life.  Sometimes fate is clear (yang) and sometimes it is mysterious (yin).  Knowing that our life is fated to be unclear may actually relieve us of trying to “figure it out.”  In that space we may even relax (!) and experience insight.  Knowing that our fate lies in family life, we can relax and not waste our energy trying to build a “successful” career.  In other words, knowing that we can’t “have it all,” we can stop wasting our energy trying to have it all, and we can put our energy into our fate. 

Sometimes we are fated for difficulties.  Polestar Astrology can tell us where those difficulties may manifest, which provides us a tool for navigating them.  Some people are fated for freedom, knowing this we can use our freedom to experience our original nature and benefit others.  Modern life tells us we are supposed to do everything, but perhaps this need not be the case.  Maybe we can relax. 
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One goal of Polestar Astrology is to relax because everything is self-resolving.   This means that in the cycles of time everything resolves of its own accord.  Birth always resolves in death, which resolves in birth, both of which express the continuum of Life. 

In my first blog, I asked a number of fundamental questions about life, the universe, and time.  In this blog, and the in the blogs that follow, I will explore and attempt to answer some of these questions from the perspective of Chinese Astrology. 

The first of these questions is, perhaps, the most important.  Any religion, science, or system of understanding reality must answer this question before it can have any relevance in our life.  If any system of inquiry, such as science, does not answer this question it has no basis, no fundamental starting point, and no coherent view on anything.  This question is--what is a human being?  We are human beings, and anything we do, create, or learn is a projection of this fact, and everything must relate to our humanity and to the relationship and significance of our humanity to the universe.  In the next blog, I will answer the question—what is the universe?  However, any understanding of the universe without an understanding of our humanity is meaningless and actually useless, for in order to understand what we are looking at, we must first know—what is looking?

The answer to “what is a human being?” may seem big, but it is actually not.  The answer is simple, perhaps too simple, and yet this simple answer contains the greatest wisdom available to any person.  A human being is a compound.  You may be saying—what the hell does that mean?  That’s not profound.  Let’s unpack what I mean.  For our compound nature is the basis of all Astrology.
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First, this is a reference to both Daoist and Buddhist view, and here I will refer specifically to what Buddhists call “the four seals of Dharma,” (not the four noble truths), the four defining factors of Buddhism.  “All compound phenomena are impermanent.”  If we search our experience, we cannot find anything that is not compounded, meaning composed of many things.  For example, everything we see is a compound of shape and color.  Everything composed must decompose; therefore everything in our experience is unstable, in a process of coming together and apart, in a process of change.  Human beings, then, cannot be “perfected.”  Meaning that we do not evolve toward any kind of ideal state, but rather we are cyclical, and our life is a rhythm which contains ups and downs, good and bad.  Since we cannot be perfected, we are relieved of any notion of progress and of any ultimate notion of “self-improvement.”  The goal of being human is not to become perfect but rather to relax and understand our compound nature of cyclical and rhythmic change.  

Our nature is movement.  All that we can actually observe in ourselves and the universe is movement.

If a human being is a compound, this begs the question—a compound of what?  The very nature of being compound means that we are a multitude of different processes in some kind of relationship with one another.  In other words, to be compounded means to be in relationship, and we are fundamentally a series of relationships.

In the ordinary sense, we are a compound of ordinary things—you, sitting and reading this, are a compound of what you ate from breakfast this morning, of your relationship with your mother, of blood, muscle, oxygen, and probably a great many fantasies, ideas, beliefs, and so on.  From the perspective of Daoism and Chinese Astrology, however, we are a compound of different cycles of “qi” in relationship with one another.  Qi is described by what the Chinese call yin and yang and the five elements (wood, fire, earth, metal, and water), what are called the heavenly stems, and by the 12 animals of the zodiac, what are called the earthly branches, which describe different patterns and qualities of cycling energy.  In human beings, these qualities compound to create what we call “Character.”  So a human being has Character, composed of qi qualities.  Character will be defined in future blogs.

What is qi?  Qi is has not English equivalent and cannot easily be defined.  To appease the Western mind, I will define qi as the movement/rhythm (meaning Time) of Light within Space.  And so ultimately we are a compound of time, light, and space.  In the relative world, this compound is characterized by yin/yang, the five elements, and the 12 animals (energy patterns) of the zodiac, which is nothing other than our ordinary experience.  But the bigger picture of time, space, and light also compound to create what the Chinese call “Fate.”  So a human being has Fate, not a pre-determined future but a pattern of energy set to unfold rhythmically over our life, manifesting as the different possibilities of our experience. Fate will also be defined in future blogs. 

Because we are compound, we have no abiding self, for any self we could find would also be compound ad-infinitum.  This means that our fundamental nature is not fixed and unchanging, but rather our nature is Freedom, the freedom of light to move within space unimpeded, and the freedom of light to move slowly, creating the appearance of solidity.  So a human being has a Nature, which is fundamentally empty of solidity and therefore free to manifest or appear as anything, including the "world."  But this freedom, what Buddhists call Emptiness, does not manifest chaotically.  Freedom is Chaos, and because it is chaos it manifests as order (chaos without order would be meaningless), and it does so through rhythms of time, space, and light.  The movement quality of time, space, and light create the “appearance” of a world and of an abiding “self,” but upon investigation these appearances are empty of any solid continuity.  They are nothing other than movement.   
 
To summarize, a human being is a compound of character, freedom, and fate.

Have I confused you?  Not to worry, in the blogs that follow, I will define all these terms in further detail.  To conclude, I will add perhaps the most important definition of a “human being.”  The Confucian tradition calls this “human heartedness” and defines human nature as fundamentally good.  A human being is fundamentally an expression of a basic goodness, a freedom which is beyond duality yet free to express duality.  Our compound nature, which cannot be perfected because it will always decompose, is also not imperfect.  It is the display of a kind of primordial perfection containing all possibilities, and it is our basic goodness that makes us capable of both compassion and hatred.  The goal of Chinese Astrology is to become a gentle person, a person who knows that everything is falling apart only to come back together again in different ways, that birth is the only cause of death, and that human beings are perfectly imperfect—knowing this creates human heartedness; knowing this, we can laugh and not take ourselves or life seriously.                 

To kick off my Astrology blog, I would like to first address the most fundamental challenge Astrology faces in the age of Scientism, namely skepticism.  "Astrology?  Do you really believe in that?  You think the planets have something to do with someone’s personality?  Come on…how naive can you be?" 

To be honest, people should be skeptical of Astrology, especially given the way it has been portrayed in the west as a “pseudo-science” and as a form of fortunetelling.  First, Chinese Astrology is not a science by Western definitions, and it is not a pseudo-science.  Chinese Astrology is, by its own definition, a “Mantic Art,” a form of “Divination,” and I will define these terms in the following blogs.  

As long as we compare Chinese Astrology with Western Science from the perspective of “Scientism,” the modern religion which seeks to “prove” through statistical research data, we will always be at a loss; we will be speaking about two different subjects.  Chinese Astrology and Western Science begin with different fundamental assumptions about the universe and about human beings, and so to begin we must, as my astrology teacher used to say, start with start.  In other words, we must define the “view” of Chinese Astrology, its point of departure, and answer the questions—what is the universe? And, what is a human being?  Any discussion of Astrology or science must begin with these questions, and in answering them, the question of skepticism will actually be answered on its own.  How?  This is what I intend to answer in the following blogs, for if you understand the view of Chinese Astrology, then you will understand that is not something to “believe” in.  Believing in Chinese Astrology is akin to saying, “I believe that tomorrow the sun will rise, or that tomorrow I will continue to have skin.”  

My intention as an Astrologer is not to defend Astrology or make it match science, nor is it to apologize because they never will.  Rather my goal is to start over with the subject.  In the blog posts that follow, I will introduce many topics that are fundamental to understanding the view teachings of Chinese Astrology and Astrology in general.  In doing this, I hope to show you how Astrology can be followed as a “wisdom path,” as a way of life.

So, if you are skeptical of Astrology, I ask you to consider the following questions, which I will address in the weeks and months to come.

First—what is Time?  Is there any significance to Time or to sequence?  What is Space?  Where are we?  When are we?  Is time linear, marching toward an ultimate end?  Or is it cyclical and rhythmic?  Are there any observable rhythms in nature?  Is there any significance to these rhythms, such as the seasons?  Do these rhythms form observable patterns?

​These basic questions must precede any discussion of Astrology, which is fundamentally a study of time and space, what we call “macrocosm.”

Second—what is a human being?  Is it important to be a human being?  What is our basic nature?  Are human beings significant?  How does a human being relate to its environment?  How does a human being relate to other beings, human or otherwise?  Where do we come from?  Do we evolve, meaning are human beings linear?  Or do we adapt for better or worse, meaning are we cyclical?  Does human life involve rhythms?  How about patterns?  Where does our behavior come from?  Are we born as tabula rasa, as a “clean slate?”  What is a human body?  Does the human body have rhythms?  How does time affect human beings? 

These kinds of questions must also precede the discussion of Astrology, which is secondarily a study of how time and space affect human beings and how human beings relate to others and to their environment, what we call “microcosm.” 

Once you have considered these questions, you are ready to enter into a discussion about Astrology.  These and similar questions are meant to draw out your conscious and unconscious views about life, for if you begin any conversation without examining your unconscious assumptions you will most likely be talking to yourself, engaging with your own foregone conclusions.  A famous saying goes, “the mind is like a parachute; it works much better when it is open.”