Taomoew

[Warrior Body Buddha Mind]

I cant remember if you was into the Chinese zodiac / Astrology or not but if you was I have a question for you!

 

Does the Western Astrology dates and animals/signs relate with the Chinese Calendar? Like what would Aries be in the Chinese Zodiac?

 

Regards

Sifu Garry

[Taomeow]

I cant remember if you was into the Chinese zodiac / Astrology or not but if you was I have a question for you!

 

Does the Western Astrology dates and animals/signs relate with the Chinese Calendar? Like what would Aries be in the Chinese Zodiac?

 

Regards

Sifu Garry

 

Hi Sifu Garry,

 

yes and yes.

 

Western zodiac is originally derived from taoist astrology -- "zodiac" (ζῳδιακός, zōdiakos) is the Greek for "circle of animals." From Western astrology, however, one of the two interlocking processes analyzed by Chinese astrology was eliminated. In Chinese astrology, the flow of qi of Heavenly Stems interacts with the flow of qi of Earthly Branches. Earthly Branches are the source of the "zodiac" -- i.e. animals are "earthly," not "heavenly." From Western astrology, earthly qi was removed, and "animals" (patterns of earthly qi) were incorporated into "heavenly signs," renamed, and their properties (types of qi) were simply "added" to those of heavenly phenomena. Western astrology reflects Western ideology (in science and religion alike) -- i.e. no power is supposed to originates from below, the below is a mere recipient of the heavenly rule, of the will of the overlord -- whether constellations, god, the pope, or the CEO, the important thing is that it is "over" your head, "above" you. That's how the circle of animals of Chinese astrology wound up in heaven in Western astrology.

 

A "sign" of Western astrology coincides with the Month Pillar of Chinese bazi ("eight characters" or "Four Pillars of Destiny") reading. You need to calculate the correspondence though, since the new year of Chinese calendar is movable and in the Western calendar it is fixed, so the same Western sign (like Aries) might correspond to two different animals for two different people, depending on when that particular year started in the Chinese calendar.

 

You can run your dates through an online calculator -- the Month Pillar will show your animal sign corresponding to your Aries. A bazi reading typically looks at four animals (a more comprehensive one, at six -- "conception" and "life" animals may be included), but I don't find it tremendously useful compared to what a Wuxing analysis of the same reading offers. However, the animal of your Month Pillar is your main one (unlike in pop Chinese astrology that looks at the "year of birth animal") and is the chief contributor to your personality, your idiosyncratic psychological traits, etc..

[Sloppy Zhang]

Well, in the spirit of asking questions......

 

I've taken a few courses in astronomy in my time in university, and usually in one of the intro classes someone brings up the topic of the zodiac. One of the things that my professors like to cite for why astrology and stuff is less serious (these days) than modern astronomy, is because many modern astrologers don't take into account the precession of the equinoxes, and stuff like that which actually changes where the stars are in the sky in relation to the earth over long periods of time.

 

So basically, stars and constellations would be in different places hundreds of years ago than they would be today, but someone studying today from an older system who isn't as familiar with the stars (ancient people looked at the stars all the time, so a lot of them already knew about this, and astrologers of the day would factor this in, as the science of astronomy was very closely tied to what they did, but that's a lot less so with astrologers these days) could actually be using correspondents and things that don't exactly work.

 

I'm not as familiar with Chinese astrology as I am with western astrology (yet), so I don't know if the basis for their calculations is the same, but what I'm wondering is-

 

Is modern astrology taking these changes into account, or is it using outdated charts of the stars which correspond to conditions hundreds of years ago, but which might have changed by now?

[Taomeow]

Well, in the spirit of asking questions......

 

I've taken a few courses in astronomy in my time in university, and usually in one of the intro classes someone brings up the topic of the zodiac. One of the things that my professors like to cite for why astrology and stuff is less serious (these days) than modern astronomy, is because many modern astrologers don't take into account the precession of the equinoxes, and stuff like that which actually changes where the stars are in the sky in relation to the earth over long periods of time.

 

So basically, stars and constellations would be in different places hundreds of years ago than they would be today, but someone studying today from an older system who isn't as familiar with the stars (ancient people looked at the stars all the time, so a lot of them already knew about this, and astrologers of the day would factor this in, as the science of astronomy was very closely tied to what they did, but that's a lot less so with astrologers these days) could actually be using correspondents and things that don't exactly work.

 

I'm not as familiar with Chinese astrology as I am with western astrology (yet), so I don't know if the basis for their calculations is the same, but what I'm wondering is-

 

Is modern astrology taking these changes into account, or is it using outdated charts of the stars which correspond to conditions hundreds of years ago, but which might have changed by now?

 

Well, let someone who knows Western astrology answer this, I only know Chinese astrology.

 

Chinese astrology is all about phasing in all the changes taking place in the fractal of time, down to its smallest features (two-hour periods of cyclical change are not the limit -- you can narrow down the flow of change to literally minutes, even seconds if you like... and if you are going to, e.g., study nanosecond-long processes, you might want to know the pattern of change on that level too -- and it's doable!) and up to the huge stretches of time that are, however, as periodic as sunrise following sunset following sunrise... and therefore predictable, on unimaginably huge scales. (The roughly 20% of utter unpredictability, however, that is built into the nature of reality according to taoist astrological sources, is what makes this science stochastic -- you can't make exact predictions as to "this will happen" and "that won't happen," only "this has a very high chance of happening" and "that has a very low chance of happening." If you do it 100% right you have an 80% chance to be correct in your predictions -- and you can't improve on that... and no one can, even gods.)

 

Chinese astrology is different from astronomy in that it is a simultaneous study of space and time, with emphasis on time. Western sciences that are beginning to notice time at all are very young. Astronomy is not one of them. I.e. it notices and can theorize about what time has done, is doing, will do... but not what time IS and WHY it behaves the way it does. Which is why they can't apply their own "scientific method" to time phenomena -- they can't, in other words, give you repeatability of their results. So they are limited to theories they can't prove with their own method of choice. No one can create a Big Bang and repeat it experimentally enough times to convince the skeptics.

 

Western sciences that are beginning to get the first idea of the possibility of "different kinds of time" in different places in space-time exist in pockets here and there not exchanging their "pocket change" with other pockets of knowledge. E.g., astronomy could benefit from applying the mathematical theory of fuzzy logic, fractals, stuff like that... An interdisciplinary genius will come one day and do it perhaps... and will be praised for centuries to come for finally inventing that old taoist bicycle...

[Fire Dragon]

Hi Sifu Garry,

 

yes and yes.

 

Western zodiac is originally derived from taoist astrology -- "zodiac" (ζῳδιακός, zōdiakos) is the Greek for "circle of animals." From Western astrology, however, one of the two interlocking processes analyzed by Chinese astrology was eliminated. In Chinese astrology, the flow of qi of Heavenly Stems interacts with the flow of qi of Earthly Branches. Earthly Branches are the source of the "zodiac" -- i.e. animals are "earthly," not "heavenly." From Western astrology, earthly qi was removed, and "animals" (patterns of earthly qi) were incorporated into "heavenly signs," renamed, and their properties (types of qi) were simply "added" to those of heavenly phenomena. Western astrology reflects Western ideology (in science and religion alike) -- i.e. no power is supposed to originates from below, the below is a mere recipient of the heavenly rule, of the will of the overlord -- whether constellations, god, the pope, or the CEO, the important thing is that it is "over" your head, "above" you. That's how the circle of animals of Chinese astrology wound up in heaven in Western astrology.

 

A "sign" of Western astrology coincides with the Month Pillar of Chinese bazi ("eight characters" or "Four Pillars of Destiny") reading. You need to calculate the correspondence though, since the new year of Chinese calendar is movable and in the Western calendar it is fixed, so the same Western sign (like Aries) might correspond to two different animals for two different people, depending on when that particular year started in the Chinese calendar.

 

You can run your dates through an online calculator -- the Month Pillar will show your animal sign corresponding to your Aries. A bazi reading typically looks at four animals (a more comprehensive one, at six -- "conception" and "life" animals may be included), but I don't find it tremendously useful compared to what a Wuxing analysis of the same reading offers. However, the animal of your Month Pillar is your main one (unlike in pop Chinese astrology that looks at the "year of birth animal") and is the chief contributor to your personality, your idiosyncratic psychological traits, etc..

 

 

 

Hello

 

Interesting discussion.

 

I have a quesstion to add to the other questions.

 

I wonder if the movability of the new year in the chinese almanac compared to the fixed new year on the western almanac, has any important psychological or methapysical or whatever interpretations? Is this difference important in understunding the difference in culture and differnence in understunding the world?

 

 

FD

[Fire Dragon]

Well, in the spirit of asking questions......

 

I've taken a few courses in astronomy in my time in university, and usually in one of the intro classes someone brings up the topic of the zodiac. One of the things that my professors like to cite for why astrology and stuff is less serious (these days) than modern astronomy, is because many modern astrologers don't take into account the precession of the equinoxes, and stuff like that which actually changes where the stars are in the sky in relation to the earth over long periods of time.

 

So basically, stars and constellations would be in different places hundreds of years ago than they would be today, but someone studying today from an older system who isn't as familiar with the stars (ancient people looked at the stars all the time, so a lot of them already knew about this, and astrologers of the day would factor this in, as the science of astronomy was very closely tied to what they did, but that's a lot less so with astrologers these days) could actually be using correspondents and things that don't exactly work.

 

I'm not as familiar with Chinese astrology as I am with western astrology (yet), so I don't know if the basis for their calculations is the same, but what I'm wondering is-

 

Is modern astrology taking these changes into account, or is it using outdated charts of the stars which correspond to conditions hundreds of years ago, but which might have changed by now?

 

 

Hello from what I have heard the precession of the equinoxes is considered in the western astrology. What I do not remember though but have a vague sense of was that it was considered quite late in the history, and that when it was considered there where changes in the solar signs, the zodiacs. When that happend, and if, I do not rememver though.

 

FD

[Gerard]

Like what would Aries be in the Chinese Zodiac?

 

Dragon.

[Sloppy Zhang]

Hello from what I have heard the precession of the equinoxes is considered in the western astrology. What I do not remember though but have a vague sense of was that it was considered quite late in the history, and that when it was considered there where changes in the solar signs, the zodiacs. When that happend, and if, I do not rememver though.

 

FD

 

Yeah, this is the kind of thing I'm wondering about. I don't know how Chinese astrology does the correspondences, but I know that western astrology places things (like the sun, planets, etc) in a constellation (from our perspective, anyway). But overtime, the location of even the constellations change as precession happens.

 

So I'm just wondering if modern astrology keeps up with that, because if we do date correspondences from an older source (such as you were born in X month, you are Y sign, and so on with other planet positions), then they may be incorrect for the present (so now if you're born in X month, you are Z sign, and so on with other planet positions).

[tumoessence]

I used to study western astrology and couldn't reconcile signs and constellations so I never persued applying it, but I have followed the logic of the two. The Zodiac Signs are from my understanding at this point, always connected with the seasons, so that Aries will always be connected to the beginning of spring. Two millenia ago the signs and constellations (Stars in the sky) coincided, and probably in ages past where astrology was developed in the west this coincidence of signs and constellations is what gave rise to the system. But the Signs have more to do with earthly existence and personality and Constellations have more to do with spiritual matters micro and macro cosmic. The precession of the equinox creates the sliding of the two systems apart from one another. There are Western Astrologers who use both for readings. John Lash's Quest for the Zodiac talks about one way to do this.

Edited December 2, 2010 by tumoessence

[Sloppy Zhang]

I used to study western astrology and couldn't reconcile signs and constellations so I never persued applying it, but I have followed the logic of the two. The Zodiac Signs are from my understanding at this point, always connected with the seasons, so that Aries will always be connected to the beginning of spring. Two millenia ago the signs and constellations (Stars in the sky) coincided, and probably in ages past where astrology was developed in the west this coincidence of signs and constellations is what gave rise to the system. But the Signs have more to do with earthly existence and personality and Constellations have more to do with spiritual matters micro and macro cosmic. The precession of the equinox creates the sliding of the two systems apart from one another. There are Western Astrologers who use both for readings. John Lash's Quest for the Zodiac talks about one way to do this.

 

Yeah, this is the kind of stuff that got me less and less interested in western astrology as I could mostly find it. People would say, "oh well, according to that date, the sun was in aries" or something like that, but then I started to think, "well... was it really?" do astrologers actually keep track of where a constellation actually is and moves to as precession occurs, and at what dates the sun/planet will be where, or do they just go by some old list that might have completely changed by now?

 

Also, thanks for the book suggestion!

Edited December 2, 2010 by Sloppy Zhang

[Zhongyongdaoist]

[Sloppy Zhang]

Regarding the precession of the equinoxes, Tumoessence's explanation about the signs and constellations is fundamentally correct. The precession hardly affects either Western astrology, or Bazi astrology at all because they are more about the properties of a period of time and not about the properties of a subset of stars occupying a particular position in space, but having looked back at how long the above is, I have decided to save that for another post, this one is long enough as it is.

 

Well please do, I am looking forward to what you have to say

[Zhongyongdaoist]

Well, onto the precession of the equinoxes. The precession of the equinoxes was known antiquity and was referred to as the motion of the eighth sphere. In the 2nd Century C.E. Claudius Ptolemy more or less summarized and finalized the cosmological thought of the previous 500 years in a book called the Almagest in which each of the seven know 'planets' from the Moon through Saturn were given a different 'sphere' for their motion, these were the first seven spheres and the eighth sphere was given to what were called the fixed stars, because they seemed at that time to have no individual motion of their own, but the totality of the fixed stars did have a motion and this motion, which Ptolemy thought to be a degree for a century (the actual motion is less than this), is what is responsible for the precession of the equinoxes.

 

Ptolemy also wrote what become the authoritative text on Astrology, the Tetrabiblios, or Four Books. In this book Ptolemy specifically says that the beginning of the Zodiac, 0 degrees of Aries, is the Vernal Equinox, the day that the Sun crossed the equator on its journey north (I will return to this later). Centuries later a discussion of the motion of the eighth sphere is given in Johannes de Sacrobosco's De Sphaero, which while written in the 13th Century became the standard textbook of astronomy through the Renaissance and into the 17th Century. During this period there was no difference between astrologers and astronomers, so astrologers knew of the motion of the eighth sphere in the middle ages. In his book The Secret Zodiac Fred Gettings explores the Zodiac symbolism of a Medieval church and comes to the conclusion that the architects knew about both the signs and constellations and used different technical terms for the sign and constellation. Cornelius Agrippa mentions the motion of the eighth sphere in both his Three Books on Occult Philosophy and in The Vanity and Uncertainty of Arts and Sciences. So there was an awareness of the precession of the equinoxes from Antiquity through the Renaissance.

 

One of the interesting things that I remember is that someone in the late Hellenistic period proposed it was part of a cycle in which the fixed stars would move first one way and then would reverse its direction until the equinox was back where it at 0 degrees of the constellation Aries. It obviously hasn't, at least not yet, but i always thought this was an interesting speculation which might have been inspired by one of Plato's 'stories' in his dialogue The Statesman, which involves a periodic reversal of the flow of time.This motion was called 'trepidation' and in the 9th Century Arab astrologer/astronomer proposed that it might be cyclic on a shorter scale and not completely return to 0 degrees Aries until it had gone all the way around the fixed stars to return to its beginning at 0 degrees Aries. This theory was apparently very influential during the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Issac Newton put an end to the motion of the eighth sphere and explained the precession as the result of long term changes in the earth's rotation.

 

It is an interesting irony that the author of an early 19th century translation of Ptolemy's Tetrabiblios, both mentions the criticism based on the precession which is the reason for this digression and also Ptolemy's insistence that the signs are defined by the solstices and equinoxes as a rebuttal to it, so the criticism is not new and any astrologer who is caught flatfooted by it has only their own ignorance to blame. Though astronomers who use it can be accused of being ignorant of what they are criticizing and attacking a straw man.

 

The revival of 'Sidereal' astrology in the West during the Twentieth Century is largely inspired by Indian astrology and its advocates being ignorant of the history Western astrology have promulgated the myth that Western astrology was ignorant of the precession out of their own ignorance.

 

What is fundamentally at stake are theories of causality and many astrologers, myself among them, have rather different models of how and why astrology would work, which in my own experience it certainly seems to do, in which something like the precession would be quit irrelevant. That is why I concluded in my previous post that neither Bazi, nor Western astrology is much affect by the precession of the equinox, but this post has been long enough and I will have to return to that another time.

[Taomeow]

Except for Tumoessence's contribution this thread is something of a muddle.

 

Taomeow, I have always found you an intelligent person with an interesting perspective so I hope that you have a good reason for saying, "Western zodiac is originally derived from taoist astrology...', because based on everything that I undertsand from a great deal of study there is no good reason to assume any fundamental dependence of Western Astrology on Chinese or vice versa. Rather the most reliable histories of Western astrology see it as arising largely from 'Chaldean' sources, by which I mean Sumerian, Babylonian, Assyrian sources, seriously reworked by the Greek philosophical/mathematical schools, with a rather late influx of Egyptian material. Likewise Chinese astrology seems to have a purely indigenous origin and it may have been influenced to some extent by Indian astrology brought in by Buddhist missionaries, it seems to have remained very faithful to a fundamentally Chinese Cosmology.

 

However, if you go to Shiji, the historic record by Sima Qian written around 100 B.C. but containing much earlier material (the second most read Chinese book in history, after the I Ching), you will find a series of predictions or "omens" that deal with the rising of the planets, their conjunctions and paths through the stars that are strikingly similar to the Enuma Anu Enlil -- so much so that communication between Chinese and Mesopotamian astrologers before 100 B.C. can only be disputed by someone not familiar with either source.

 

Multiple caravan routes intersecting in Persia connected the Greeks and the Chinese and that's where and that's how the (much) older civilization was being vigorously absorbed by the budding one. The origin of "The Greek Miracle" -- the sudden (sic) cultural and scholastic boom it experienced, which seeded the rest of Western civilization, is fully traceable to these contacts. A Eurocentric view of culture has been circumventing this plain fact of history for centuries. The premise that China was "isolated" originates in the same ideology, not in the historic fact.

 

So... research in this direction if interested, or not if not. I don't approach these things as a scholar with an ax to grind... I merely go to research when I need to get a better idea as to what to choose for in-depth study out of all the inexhaustible "stuff out there," but I have no use for trivia accumulated in the process of making this determination in the form of "precise dates" and "exact places" and "correctly spelled names." Once I've satisfied myself that the authors I've reviewed have already done the job (or not), I don't memorize for Jeopardy type victories... so I remember the very central what-it's-all-about of things, and promptly lose the rest. So if you won't look at the sources I mentioned yourself, for no other reason than because I got you curious... then that's pretty much the end of it. I have nothing to prove except "I don't do homework for forums."

[VCraigP]

However, if you go to Shiji, the historic record by Sima Qian written around 100 B.C. but containing much earlier material (the second most read Chinese book in history, after the I Ching), you will find a series of predictions or "omens" that deal with the rising of the planets, their conjunctions and paths through the stars that are strikingly similar to the Enuma Anu Enlil -- so much so that communication between Chinese and Mesopotamian astrologers before 100 B.C. can only be disputed by someone not familiar with either source.

 

Multiple caravan routes intersecting in Persia connected the Greeks and the Chinese and that's where and that's how the (much) older civilization was being vigorously absorbed by the budding one. The origin of "The Greek Miracle" -- the sudden (sic) cultural and scholastic boom it experienced, which seeded the rest of Western civilization, is fully traceable to these contacts. A Eurocentric view of culture has been circumventing this plain fact of history for centuries. The premise that China was "isolated" originates in the same ideology, not in the historic fact.

 

 

Once again TM pulls from her bag of Un-Orthodox history, my favorite kind.

 

Craig

[Taomeow]

Once again TM pulls from her bag of Un-Orthodox history, my favorite kind.

 

Craig

 

Thanks for sharing in the fun! There's more where this comes from... good to know I'm not the only one who likes pulling rabbits out of the old worn top hats of history where one wouldn't expect to find anything alive... but... hey presto!

[Zhongyongdaoist]

Well Taomeow I'm not completely disappointed in you. I didn't characterize you as an 'intelligent person with an interesting point of view' for nothing and you have certainly come up with an interesting reason for your statement that 'Western zodiac is originally derived from taoist astrology', whether it's a good reason or not remains to be seen, but first I would like to point out some similarities and differences between our approaches:

 

So... research in this direction if interested, or not if not. I don't approach these things as a scholar with an ax to grind... I merely go to research when I need to get a better idea as to what to choose for in-depth study out of all the inexhaustible "stuff out there," but I have no use for trivia accumulated in the process of making this determination in the form of "precise dates" and "exact places" and "correctly spelled names." Once I've satisfied myself that the authors I've reviewed have already done the job (or not), I don't memorize for Jeopardy type victories... so I remember the very central what-it's-all-about of things, and promptly lose the rest. So if you won't look at the sources I mentioned yourself, for no other reason than because I got you curious... then that's pretty much the end of it. I have nothing to prove except "I don't do homework for forums."

We are both 'generalists', people who look at diverse areas and want to see 'the big picture' and as such the results of our research is only as good as our sources. I will note that as far as I am concerned someone with 'an ax to grind' is a scholar in name only and goes against what I would consider to be the real spirit of scholarship. They are, to harken back to an old saying, an ideologue in scholar's clothing. Rather than pursuing research to find 'the truth' they are simply looking for whatever will shore-up their their own prior commitments. Regrettably this is not a failing limited to 'scholars'.

 

Myself, I only do research when I have a concrete problem to solve, thus, for example I researched Platonism in the late 70s (very reluctantly I might add, my first exposure to Plato in my late teens left me rolling on the floor with laughter!) in an effort to understand the larger context of Agrippa's works on Occult Philosophy and also based on an idea that occurred to me in 1976 that based on what little I did know about Plato, indicated that within a platonic context Agrippa's system of magic was a completely rational system following quit logically from what we might call, platonic first principles. I even jokingly began to refer to Agrippa's three books as a treatise on platonic engineering. Several years of research not only showed the value of such an approach, but to my own amazement the value of Plato.

 

We are both concerned with whether the authors to whom we turn have done the work which we don't have time to do, but here is where we do part company, I don't find anything trivial about 'precise dates' and 'exact places' and spelling can also be important, though especially with Chinese studies the shift to Pinyin has made recognizing names, even those spelled correctly in 'old school' style something of a challenge. Sinologists aside, someone could hardly be blamed if at first glance they didn't recognize Sima Qian and Ssu Ma Ch'ien as the same person. I don't memorize anything because I don't have to memorize, for good or ill I have an excellent memory and find myself remembering far too much real trivia! However, dates and places and even names I view as important data points which may allow one to expand ones perspective by making connections which would be quit impossible without such information. Indeed James Burke's original 'Connections' is very similar to the way I investigate things and my facility with dates and places and yes, even names, has allowed me to make all sorts of interesting connections, some of which I thought worth pursuing and others not worth the time and effort for one reason or another.

 

I don't know if either the 'scholar with an as to grind' or the 'jeopardy like victories' were intended to be aimed at me, I hope not, but since someone may have taken them that way I have chosen to address them. I have never played 'Trivial Pursuits',either literally or figuratively, and I don't go around showing off what I know, people who know me superficially have no idea what I am into and I'm not talking about the 'weird spooky stuff' either, but I don't go around boring people with talk about how Einstein's work on relativity is directly related to Maxwell's equations, or Xunzi's conflict with 'Mencius' and its origin in differing definitions of both 'nature' and 'human', such behavior would be worse than merely boring it would be pretentious and I try to avoid both. People who know me from work or social contacts think of me as a friendly and witty conversationalist and I am very popular exactly because I have nothing to prove. I very specifically did not join Mensa, even though I could have, just to avoid the type of boring and pretentious people who derive their sense of self worth from a largely meaningless number. On a personal level I am very secure and have nothing whatever 'to prove'. However, on a forum like this I feel it my duty to provide the most accurate information that I can and as necessary to support that information with details and analysis which some people might find boring. As for not 'doing homework for forums', I completely agree, but then I don't have to, because I already have done it, decades worth of it, for myself. I chose to share it with others who may be interested both because I am a generous person and also because I consider it my duty to do so.

 

Looking at the above I see that it has gone on long enough, I had hoped to get to more specific details, but I will start them in another post. Since I have already pretty much decided what to say it should follow on this fairly quickly.

[Taomeow]

Zhongyongdaoist,

 

aside from your opening sentence in which you grant yourself the right to paternalize (without merit -- I am also a mensa bailer-out ), I agree with much of your sentiment or at least see where you're coming from. I didn't mean to contrast "my way" with yours when I was describing it. I was just describing it. I am fully aware that "my way" can be suspect to those who don't use it (which was the original objection you had to my "western derived from taoist" statement with no footnotes to back it up), because I seldom retain linear "proof" -- I merely wanted it to go on record that I do review such proof before discarding and not using and forgetting it, is all. Meaning, I have the tool, I just don't use it "at all times for all purposes."

 

Not so when I've zeroed in on what I do want to know in depth and be able to explain to someone else if necessary. That's where all the fine details matter, and if I don't have them, it's only because I'm dealing with something huge that you can't grok all at once. Chinese astrology is one such area. My teachers suggested a timeline of 30+ years to become truly an expert. I have invested about 12 so far. This means I have thoroughly forgotten hundreds of sources that I perused during this time because I no longer need them. This also means I'm not afraid to make a mistake because a mistake no longer signifies cluelessness, it signifies about as much as a spelling error does for someone who actually does know how to write in general and how to spell in particular -- i.e. nothing to be hung up about. Once you know the right way to write "the right way," you don't sweat accidentally writing "the light way" -- see what I mean?

 

I used to have to consult books to figure out the motion of the Nine Flying Stars, e.g., till I learned how to do it on my fingers. Once I learned to do it on my fingers, I proceeded to learn how to do it in my mind. The image of motion -- the universal pattern of motion of qi in the universe -- is nonverbal, so now that I have it installed in my mind, I know something that started out as knowledge on the verbal level and ended up abandoning this level and moving on to the next one. When asked to retrace my steps, back to the verbal and numerical level, I may or may not remember all of them, particularly because the decisive bit of information that allowed for all of it to fall into place came in an instant blaze of inspiration, blinding me with its beauty and simplicity and burning all the bridges -- elaborately engineered, sturdy, tangible, respectable, linear bridges that took me to that place only to be destroyed in a fierce blaze of truth... ...see what I mean? It's not easy being me.

[Friend]

Edited November 16, 2011 by Friend