Chen mountain

Meaning

Chen, 辰 chén, is the first mountain of the south-east (SE1): the fifteen degrees from 112.5° to 127.5°, centred on 120°. It takes its name from Chen, the fifth of the twelve Earthly Branches, the Dragon’s, and carries its phase, Earth.

Chen is the Dragon’s branch, Earth, the moist ground of the last month of spring and the morning hours. On the compass it opens the south-east, from the line at 112.5° where the east ends. A home facing Chen looks between east-south-east and south-east and sits in Xu, the Dog’s mountain, at the north-west: a Qian house, of the West group like every home facing the south-east.

For the Flying Stars Chen is the south-east’s Earth dragon and counts as yin, unlike Xun and Si, so its main chart is its own. Built in Period 7, a home facing Chen had the prosperous chart; built in Period 8, the reversed one, which the classics say the pearl string softens; built in Period 9, both of the period’s stars at the front. The prosperous chart comes to it in Periods 3, 5 and 7.

In practice

• The facing: a home whose front faces between 112.5° and 127.5° faces Chen, and sits in Xu, NW1: a Qian house of the West group. The Home lens tints Chen on its dial and draws Xu dashed.
• Near its edges: within 3° of 112.5° or 127.5° many schools read a replacement chart, which Ulune shows beside the main one; within 1.5° the facing is on a void line: at 112.5° the line between the east and the south-east, towards Yi; at 127.5° the line towards Xun, inside the south-east.
• The Flying Stars: built in Period 9, a home facing Chen has the formation Double stars at the facing; built in Period 8, the formations Reversed and Pearl string.
• The year: Chen is the Grand Duke’s mountain in a Dragon year, 2024 and 2036, which the classics suggest not facing for the year’s new beginnings, and the Year Breaker’s in 2030 and 2042, a side they suggest leaving undisturbed by works. The year’s 5 Yellow visits its palace, the south-east, in 2030 and 2039.

Across traditions

• The solar terms: on luopan plates that carry a ring of the solar terms, Chen goes with the Grain Rain, the Sun at 30°, entering Taurus in the Western zodiac.
• Two dragons: the Dragon of the branches stands at the south-east, while the Azure Dragon of the Four Symbols, 青龍, guards the whole east, and for the Form School the green dragon is the higher ground on a home’s left as it faces out: three dragons, three systems.

Origin and history

The south-east, where Chen begins, is the side to which the Chinese land slopes. In the Huainanzi’s myth, when Gonggong struck the mountain that held up the sky, heaven tilted to the north-west and the earth sank in the south-east, so that the sun, the moon and the stars drift west and the rivers run east to the sea. The luopan’s south-east carries the late spring of the ring of terms, the Grain Rain at Chen, when those rivers fill.

How Ulune calculates it

Ulune finds the mountain a home faces from its magnetic facing, among 24 mountains of 15° counted from Ren at 337.5°: Chen takes every facing from 112.5° up to 127.5°, that edge belonging to the next, and the home sits in the mountain opposite, Xu. For the Flying Stars, Chen is the first mountain of a corner palace, of the group the classics call the Earth dragon, and so counts as yin: when the stars look to it for their flight, it sends a star backward. Its replacement star, from the classical verse, is 6, which takes the place of the number going to the centre when, near an edge, it is the mountain that decides.

Correspondences