Richard Ashworth’s Pig Diary for 2016

~ GMT.
# You’ll need a Chinese calendar for this. * Caution: Chinese months start later.

Where to do what, when and why.

Summary: Here’s where to make plans that make things happen.
East, Ambition: Year Star: 9 Dragon Virtue, Month Star: 9.

The 9 returning to the East boosts the Second Daughter, the visionary and careful planning while Dragon Virtue looks out for reputation. Keep this area appropriately spick and span. Occupying the East and/or facing that direction taps the 9/9 which rewards virtuous and brave leadership. If you’re here constantly – which is not a bad idea – activate the area with gentle care. Support with plants – as many as you like but not fewer than three. Above all, dare to dream. Here.

Favours: East Group kuas: 1, 3, 4 & 9, some Rabbits, Pigs, Dogs, Sheep.

“Late last night I heard that screen door slam and a big yellow taxi took away my old man.” Joni Mitchell.

On this day of all days, at the opening of this Pig month, I am tempted to prediction. But I know that the margin between predicting and creating is gossamer thin. So regardless of the monsters that dwell along either prong of this fork in the road, I’m not crossing that line today.

Some 105 years ago, in the Year of the Metal or “Golden” Pig 1911, an explosion in Wuhan in the Hubei Province of Central China set off a chain of events that changed the World: the end of a 2000-year-long line of Emperors, republic, struggle, the Long March, Communism and finally today’s manufacturing giant. This may be why Chinese tradition makes every Pig Year and hence every Pig Month, “golden.” Which is cute but a bit of a misunderstanding.

We all know that translating Chinese can be a minefield. The character jin for instance stands both for “golden” and “metallic” but it only applies to one Pig in five (and this month’s Pig is not the one). Similarly the terms sik sun and zeun kun which define that Pig (and only that Pig) mean literally “output”. The Pig is naturally creative and the Metal Pig especially so but for a man output means simple creativity, while for a woman along with many other things, it is childbirth.

1911 was certainly a year of major output but the Chinese Revolution that followed may be less important than the one that’s happening worldwide right now. For a man, output is straightforward, for a woman sik sun/zeun kun include children. In other words her choice is often between fertility and other forms of creativity, a decision which for biological reasons has not confronted men. This is not forever. We are evolving morally and spiritually as well as physically. In the privileged West at least, we are taller and stronger than our ancestors and despite a great deal of current contrary evidence, wiser and kinder.

Today we may watch the carvings and twistings of “Game of Thrones” but in the Middle Ages we were living them. Which as well as committing us all to spreading kindness, means that we are learning and growing. Gradually at least.
Which has something but not everything to do with today’s US Election.

As of yesterday this is both the Year and the Month of the Woman. Like the year itself, the monthly lo shu or magic square (above) has the 2 at its centre. The 2 represents Mother, the feminine principle (that is yin), relationship and Woman herself but also expansion, blockage, growth and certain minor illnesses.

Because of the way that Chinese metaphysics measures time, it’s been a very long while since the 2 was strong. Technically we are just leaving the 8^th Chinese Fate and entering the 9^th. This process is complete sometime between now and 2024 and it means that all the Stars in the lo shu above are changing. Until recently the 2 has been reckoned to be more about blockage than healthy expansion. It is historically the number (or Star) of tumours and swelling for example. But it’s also the Star of personal growth and gain. And its time is coming.

So the 2 has suffered a bad rap. But for a little while now some Masters – such as Joey Yap, probably the most successful feng shui man in the world – have been advising activation (that is stimulation) of the 2 Star where and when it appears. Risk the sickness, make the gain, is the principle; the times they are er…a-changing (©Nobel Institute 2016). And it rules the coming month as well as this year.

And why does this matter? Well it seems that the yang or masculine principle has been dominant for several thousand years. One obvious meaning of the 2 of course is pregnancy. And until the late 20^th century a sexually active woman could expect to be pregnant for thirty or so years with every likelihood of dying in childbirth during that time. Which made her at least fragile and therefore largely dependent. Life expectancy for Western woman has literally doubled since the introduction of the contraceptive pill. That and Wade v Roe may prove to have been the most important events of our lifetimes.

Because what it means is that the sik sun and zeun kun are released to be expressed in a myriad ways other than childbirth. Woman are free now to create any way they like. Consequently in the West, zero population growth  is upon us. And not before time, there is a chance that a feminine, that is empowering, bonded and cooperative approach to running the world follows. It’s not I think, that yin thinking is superior, wiser or even gentler, but that it’s been missing. The patriarchy has been allowed to run wild like a very long Rugby tour. Look at what we have tolerated in our various representatives.

Nate Silver in his book “The Signal and the Noise” makes clear the distinction between forecast and prediction; we forecast weather, we predict the winners of horse races. And so as I said, on this day of all days, although I am tempted, I’m not about to predict.

Because if I accept that I am responsible for everything in my life, to foretell an outcome is to create it. You don’t have to agree about that and it may be bat-crazy to you but I’ll tell you what: however November 8^th goes (which you know about and I don’t) it’s only a matter of time before the yin is properly represented  in corporate boardrooms, the Senate and the White House.

This revolution is unstoppable. It may have been close to 10,000 years in coming but that was only a blip. 105 years is a very short time by comparison. Really. Aleppo and Palestine, Auschwitz, Magdeburg and Masada are part of a bad dream that is nearly over. Humankind has taken a long wrong turn by way of the stupidity and brutality that characterises the unsupervised male but we are as Joni Mitchell also wrote, both “stardust and golden.” And believe me, this may not just change the World but as the Dalai Lama predicted, save it.

Richard Ashworth © 2016
 
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