Start of Autumn

Meaning

The Start of Autumn, Liqiu, is the thirteenth of the twenty-four solar terms: the Sun at 135°, about 8 August. In the Chinese year autumn begins here, halfway between the summer solstice and the autumn equinox, even though the days are still hot: the late heat that follows has its own name, the “autumn tiger”. What changes is the direction of the season, from growth to harvest.

It is an opening term: it opens the Monkey month, the seventh solar month and the first of autumn. In the five phases the season turns to Metal, the phase of gathering in, of cutting and of clear edges: the Monkey and Rooster months are Metal, and the Dog month that closes autumn is Earth.

Its three pentads are the first cool winds, the white dew settling at dawn, and the cold cicada singing: small signs, felt at night and in the early morning, that the year has turned.

In practice

• In BaZi a birth from this instant belongs to the Monkey month and its pillar; a birth within five minutes of it is marked uncertain, since a slightly different time would give the Goat month.
• In Chinese astrology the month animal turns from the Goat to the Monkey, and the Cycles lens begins the Monkey month’s reading here.
• In Feng Shui the month’s star changes, one less than the Goat month’s.
• The Calendar marks it on its day, with the Sun at 15° Leo, as the opening of the Monkey month.

Across traditions

• In the Celtic year Lughnasadh, on 1 August, also opens autumn halfway between solstice and equinox, the festival of the first harvest, which England knew as Lammas, the loaf-mass of the new wheat.
• In Japan risshū turns the summer greetings into late-summer greetings, zansho mimai, however hot it still is; in Korea the term is ipchu, in Vietnam lập thu.
• In Western astrology the Sun is at 15° Leo, the heart of the high-summer sign: the West still calls it summer, the Chinese year already autumn.

Origin and history

The Monthly Ordinances of the Book of Rites, after the “Twelve Months” of the Lüshi Chunqiu, have the ruler go out to the western suburb on the day of Liqiu to welcome the autumn, dressed in the white of Metal, as he had welcomed spring in the east and summer in the south. The Huainanzi, in 139 BC, sets the day among the twenty-four.

The Song court gave it a graceful rite. In Lin’an, Wu Zimu tells, a parasol tree, the wutong, was set below the palace hall, and at the moment of the term the court astronomer called out “Autumn has come!” as one or two of its leaves fell. Many families still “bite the autumn” with watermelon on this day, or eat meat to “stick on the autumn fat” after the lean appetite of summer.

How Ulune calculates it

Ulune takes the Start of Autumn as the instant the Sun’s apparent longitude reaches 135°, from its table of the solar terms computed with the Swiss Ephemeris for 1800 to 2200. The Monkey month and its pillar begin at that instant, whatever the clock or the time zone. In 2026 it fell on 7 August at 11:42 UT.

Correspondences