Happy Dragon-Tiger Dance
Happy New Year!
Officially, the Chinese New Year of the Yáng Wood Dragon (associated with the specific 甲辰 combination in what we call in English the “sexagenary cycle” that combines one of the ten Heavenly Stems 天干 with one of the 12 Earthly Branches 地支) has started today. And apparently my mention in a previous newsletter of the Tiger month beginning yesterday was confusing to some people so I will try to make sense of it, before just a tiny bit of commentary on this tiger-dragon dance.
But Wait… When Is It?
The reason I got excited yesterday already was that I find myself influenced more by the actual happenings in the sky over my head than by what I perceive as the restrictive calculations of the official calendar, be it solar or lunar or luni-solar (more on that below). For my location on Whidbey Island just north of Seattle in the Pacific Northwest of the United States, the New Moon happened yesterday, February 9, at 3 pm local time, instead of today. Which, incidentally, was already February 10 in China. So that’s one reason why you may have sensed a little wobble between the official Chinese New Year start date and the state of the moon where you might be. It’s something I work with every month as I try to align my podcast and translation releases with both my local celestial experiences and the traditional Chinese calendar. If I am a bit inconsistent there, please forgive me. I am a monkey and like to jump around.
But regardless of whether it started yesterday or today, we are celebrating the passing of the Yin Water Rabbit Year and the beginning of the Yang Wood Dragon Year. This date is selected consistently in the Chinese tradition as the New Moon that is closest to the beginning of spring 立春. Glad we got that out of the way.
Start of the Month for Astrologers Versus Everybody Else
In addition, the members of my Imperial Tutor mentorship should by now be used to the monthly change of the zodiac animal (and earthly branch 地支) that happens on every New Moon, since that is the way I organize the material in my membership. And I do this quite intentionally because the traditional Chinese calendar, also known as the “farmer’s calendar” 農曆, is organized in accordance with the cycle of the moon, with every New Moon signifying the beginning of the next month. So we generally have twelve months in the year, but since the solar yearly cycle is a bit longer than twelve moon cycles, “intercalary” months are added from time to time, as we had last year. This farmer’s calendar is what traditionally organized life for ordinary people. We call it a “lunisolar” calendar because it is a combination of the cycles of the moon with the journey of the sun, being marked by the quarterly markers of the winter and summer solstices and spring and autumn equinoxes, subdivided further into the 24 “seasonal nodes” 節氣.
This is where it gets complicated, and since I am definitely not a numbers or three-dimensional astronomy person, please forgive me if I am not clear here. But a couple of you asked in response to yesterday’s letter, so I am trying to answer this. In addition to this traditional ordinary “farmer’s calendar,” technical experts in the tradition of the 數術 “technical calculations,” like fengshui specialists, astrologers, military strategists, and wise people like that, use a separate, special calendar that is only based on the solar cycle. I am an ordinary person and have found for me personally that the lunar cycles do mark a more powerful switch of Qi. I just find it easier to relate to, to be quite honest. But people are different, and you may find yourself more drawn to the more specialized astrologers’ calendar. While this can make it very confusing to people who don’t know that we are dealing with two different systems of calculating time, in the end the difference is just a few days and probably not worth making a fuss over. To me, It’s just a little cosmic wobble.
Tiger-Dragon Dance
Now we get into the fun stuff, and this will be brief since my stomach is growling for dumplings:
Many of you may know that the 7th-century medical author Sun Simiao 孫思邈 is one of my great inspirations in life, and a historical figure who I have spent many years trying to learn about. Those of you who have heard me lecture about his biography or even bothered to read my doctoral dissertation know that there is a discrepancy between the popular beliefs and stories about him and his presentation in the historical sources. According to the latter, he was a pretty straightforward member of the literate elite, an illustrious and honored advisor to the first emperor of the Tang dynasty, a well-known calligrapher and the author of treatises on Buddhism, Daoism, and Confucianism, as well as of medical texts like the famous medical encyclopedia Beiji qianjin yaofang and its companion, the Qianjin yifang. According to the official historical records, he was a highly educated, talented, active member of high society with famous disciples and a special talent for physiognomy. And that is more or less the end of the story. Some conservative scholars, most notably Nathan Sivin, have even doubted the accuracy of this limited biographical information, and might even question his authorship of the Beiji qianjin yaofang. Chinese historians tend to disagree and have reconstructed vivid and colorful biographies based on traces found in this text, which they accept at face value as his own writing. And then of course there is the popular veneration of Sun Simiao as the “King of Medicinals” 藥王, a Daoist adept turned immortal after decades of living as a hermit in a mountain cave, in the company of a tiger and dragon, where he treated the local inhabitants with his supernatural healing skills.
At this point in my life, I personally try and stay out of the controversy because what matters to me is not so much who Sun Simiao was as what the stories we weave tell us about the cultural environment that created those stories. Ultimately, does it matter whether Sun Simiao became an immortal or died at over a hundred years of age? Does it matter whether dragons are real or Master Sun got to snuggle with a tiger? More interesting to me is this image of Sun Simiao seated peacefully with a tiger by his feet and a dragon draped over his head (photo courtesy of Paul Unschuld who also appears to be a great fan of Sun Simiao)
And this is the image that I want to leave you with today for this point in time, as we welcome the Year of the Dragon and the Moon of the Tiger in the auspicious alignment of a new cycle of the sun and the moon. This dynamic interplay between the two most powerful animals of the Chinese zodiac, the earthly tiger and the heavenly dragon. Fire and Water, Yang and Yin, down and up, tiger’s dense material elemental presence and dragon’s ephemeral intangible soaring above the clouds. Both of them roaring symbols of the unpredictable and uncontrollable force of nature…
Do you remember that beautiful movie 藏龍臥虎 “Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon”? While I absolutely love that movie, the expression is one of those wonderful four-character sayings 成語 that I greatly enjoy. It goes back to a line from a 6th-century poem by Yǔ Xìn 庾信: “A dark stone that could be mistaken for a hidden tiger. A coiled root seeming like a sleeping dragon 暗石疑藏虎，盤根似臥龍。” Yikes! It’s the powerful, scary, unpredictable dance of life at its fullest, of earthly presence and heavenly potential, this interaction between the two greatest natural forces in the cosmos. And here I am, this little monkey trying to figure out how to not get devoured or smushed in the middle. Ha, it will be an exciting few weeks as I try to restrain myself from pulling the tiger’s tail or dragon’s whisker. Oh but I can’t wait to soar and roar as I get ready to move to my new home, which is appropriately located in a beautiful hillside halfway up the mountain, between water and clouds, next to a giant old maple tree. You should see the Yijing readings I have been getting about this situation. AND… the best part, now I can tell the world since we are under contract and there is no turning back and none of you can buy the house from under my nose: The address is just perfect: 3 – 6 – 9 – 9 . Clearly meant to be. I can’t believe it waited for me. Clearly divine timing, after all….
