Showtime! Auspicious Dates & Places for the Rooster Month

A 1 month                             is about communication – expressed or withheld.
A typical Rooster Month            focuses on exhibition.
Where not to be this month:    South West, South.
Where to be this month:            South East & at the heart of things.
Favoured Animals:                       Snake, Ox, Dragon.
Especially challenged:               (in order) Rabbit, Dog, Rooster, Pig, Sheep.
The Hexagram* (above):           Xiao Guo Little Impact, restraint                        Summary:                                    Open up – carefully. Wei wu wei.

*I am now listing the Hexagram corresponding to the particular month in question rather than the generic Tidal Gua. Put simply, Xiao Guo corresponds specifically to a Metal Rooster rather than to just any Rooster.

The Month of the Metal Rooster, Animal by Animal:
These generic forecasts carry different nuance dependent upon whether this Animal rules your Year, Month, Day, Hour or Life House.

Rooster (1945, 57, 69, 81, 93; births in September*, 5-7pm & on certain days#) Uncomfortable, a time to get attention out and acknowledge others.

Dog (1946, 58, 70, 82, 94; births in October*, 7-9pm & on certain days#) Draining in a nagging sort of way. Your priorities may not be top of the list.

Pig (1947, 59, 71, 83, 95; births in November*, 9-11pm & on certain days#) Some headway, unlikely to be spectacular.

Rats (1948, 60, 72, 84, 96; births in December* 11pm-1am & on certain days#).
Distracting, some unwelcome separation possible.

Ox (1949, 61, 73, 85, 97; births in January*, 1-3am & on certain days#) You are likely to be heard and understood. Worth persevering.

Tiger (1950, 62, 74, 86, 98; births in February*, 3-5am & on certain days#) Undermotivated, prone to disagreement to which compromise may be the best response. And the quietest. Ignore at your peril especially with Dragons involved.

Rabbit (1951, 63, 75, 87, 99; births in March*, 5-7am & on certain days#) Direct opposition arrives to match your reinforcements. East-West home’s best. Lower sights.

Dragon (1952, 64, 76, 88, 2000; births in April* 7-9am & on certain days#) Year pinnacle, fill your boots. September’s easy, October’s hard.

Snake (1941,53, 65, 77, 89; births in May*, 9-11am & on certain days#) A secretive time. Apply wisdom to discretion.

Horse (1942, 54, 66, 78, 90; births in June*, around midday & on certain days#) Can be baffling, even startling to the unprepared Horse. There are other varieties.

Sheep (1943, 55, 67, 79, 91; births in July*, 1-3pm & on certain days#) A time of re-joining. Expect a qualified welcome to a new enterprise or institution.

Monkey (1944, 56, 68, 80, 92; births in August*, 3-5pm & on certain days#) Anti-climactic. Prey and plunder in different places now.

* Chinese Months start later than European ones.
#You’ll need help or a Chinese Calendar for this.

A Helpful Day
Sunday 10^th September, Metal Sheep, Pleiades, Open (5) ***
A door may open unexpectedly after long closure. Action may be tempting but passivity and acceptance work better. Today suits seeking the role of subordinate as well as cutting trees and levelling.
Activity: hang loose     
Advantage: Pig, Rabbit, Sheep, Horse, the versatile & the adaptable.

Not so Helpful
Tuesday 19^th September, Metal Dragon, Wings, Danger (5) ***** Caution!
Very poor. A Metal Dragon with Wings is potentially as hazardous as it gets. It speaks of dilemmas, even trilemmas that appear to need urgent solution. Be aware of the extent to which any remedial action is simply to relieve a feeling you can’t contain. Work with Rats & Monkeys.
Activity: Rat due North, a problem shared is a problem halved.

A Helpful Location
Tai chi, Home, the centre: Year Star: 4 Month Star: 1.
The Stars at the tai chi of course, being the centre, apply everywhere. This is a time of communication, some frantic, some more measured. Negotiation offered may be turned down – at some cost. Judgement may waver. 1:4 often speaks of conservative, workaday kinds of aspiration; thinking at this time probably needs to be a bit bigger, a bit less reasonable but it is early to put such ambition into practice. Compromise may resonate down the years but careful timing makes for a successful outcome. These Stars favour those in need of Wood which may in this case mean creativity and a gentle adamance.  Good probably for Horses and Dogs. Locate here and face appropriately.
Adjust: Water or more Wood at the tai chi may help creative juices flow.

Not so Helpful
North West, Authority: Year Star:5 Month Star: 2 Dragon Virtue (Dog NW1).Year Wu huang.
Still very poor to locate here; 5:2 is traditionally associated with issues of health and authority, also Fathers, technology, music and law. This is a pocket of hindrance. Not the place for one with fixed views, It’s more unruly than usual here in a very unruly year. Stay away if you can. If your door opens here, enter another way. The likely consequence of being here would be serious male-female rifts: In a 1 Month, it may be that harsh words cannot easily be withdrawn.
Adjust: t’ang lung (still) addresses the 5 if you haven’t yet made the connection.

Showtime! the Month of the Metal Rooster.

The time that is coming may not be easy to navigate. The Metal Rooster of the month calls for display while the corresponding Hexagram counsels restraint. There is a Chinese term for an appropriate response: Wei wu wei. Wei means action, wu means “not”. So this is a month of taking action by taking no action. This may sound perverse or even meaningless to the rushed Western mind but it is truly neither. In respecting the tao we act at the appropriate moment and in the appropriate place. We allow as Chuck Spezzano would advise, things to happen through and for rather than by us. The Five Elements are bound by rules as are yin and yang but as far as I can tell, the tao is not.

Elementally Rooster represents the precision and cutting edge of Metal in its Yin form: a hatpin as opposed to a broadsword, geometric design rather than computing, fashion and cosmetics as against legal practice. The direction of Metal is inwards. And so a Rooster Month propels thing to the centre. A Metal Rooster doubly so but Yin Metal is the stiletto concealed in the sleeve rather than the frontal assault.

Paradoxically perhaps, for this and other reasons this Rooster (1981) is often considered even more showy than the other four. Things may be done simply for visible effect this month: bluffs, feints and distractions. Which may be ludicrously poorly timed or placed and unlikely to be limited to the public stage, they may indeed occur in our kitchens and by our water fountains as well as in high places. And when the dubious comes to light, the subject of attention may welcome it. Look for this kind of pattern on bright Horse days like the 9^th and 21^st of September and the 3^rd of October. Such attention could be very personal if there is a Horse in your ba zi, very public if it takes place to the South.

Roosters are also proverbially uncomfortable with other Roosters, probably because they are competing for the same spotlight. This dynamic may be obvious on this Month’s Rooster Days: the 12^th and 24^th of September and the 6^th of October.

And of course Roosters are in direct conflict with the Animal of the Year, the Rabbit. Metal and Wood respectively, both Yin, are naturally opposed. Rooster versus Rabbit is a slap fight, often translated as disappointment and deception, what you see is not what you get. Rabbit traditionally is let down by Rooster, sometimes the other way round.  Poor on the 18^th, worst on the 30^th. Truth and candour are at a premium at such times.

As for the guidance of the Month Hexagram, the text attached to Xiao Guo (above) tells us that “a flying bird transmits its notes” but also that it is more appropriate this month to descend than ascend. This Hexagram is made up of Thunder on top and Mountain below. The bird’s cry echoes across the valley floor but no further. The advice appears to be to learn from the highflyer but not to attempt to fly. The wise contain aspiration for the time being.

Sometime over the next couple of weeks I visit the clients I referred to last month whose profits have multiplied thousands of percent since we started working together. You’ll recall they have a perfectly oriented house in a disastrous configuration. I shall be taking a tame architect (a rare breed) with me.

See you next month. Meanwhile remember there is as it says in Ecclesiastes, “a time (and place) for every purpose under Heaven” Wei wu wei.
© Richard Ashworth 2023 
  

Meanwhile:
On October 7^th I will be introducing Classical feng shui to a live group at Fintry House in Godalming.
I will be hosting a fresh Book of Changes series of workshops from October, examining each coming month’s Hexagram with a view, among other things to getting better and better at recognising how the month will play out. For those interested in forecasting as well as self-knowledge these workshops are the nursery slopes. Early Bird expires September 12th.
And of course I’m teaching feng shui and ba zi online one-to-one all the time, dates and times by mutual arrangement.
I may teach another starter Date Selection Course this year if there are the numbers for it. Do let us know if you’re keen, only basic prior feng shui knowledge required.
And finally – for your diary, no more details yet – I’ll be talking about the coming Wood Dragon Year on the 2^nd December (via Zoom – timed to suit students from Australia to Vancouver) and again on the 9^th December (live in the Surrey Hills).
© Artwork Ellie Spinelli