Mao mountain

Meaning

Mao, 卯 mǎo, is the middle mountain of the east (E2): the fifteen degrees from 82.5° to 97.5°, centred on 90°, due east. It takes its name from Mao, the fourth of the twelve Earthly Branches, the Rabbit’s, and carries its phase, Wood.

Mao is the east itself, 90°, the branch of the Rabbit, of sunrise and of the heart of spring, when growth breaks through as through an open gate. At the equinoxes the sun rises due east nearly everywhere on Earth, over Mao. A home facing Mao looks to that sunrise and sits in You, due west: a Dui house, of the West group.

For the Flying Stars Mao is the east’s Heaven dragon and counts as yin, as the branch does in BaZi, and it shares its main chart with Yi. Built in Period 8, a home facing either has both of the period’s stars at the back; built in Period 9, at the front. In the middle periods the prosperous chart comes to them in Periods 3, 5 and 7, in 3 and 7 with the opposed chart, and the reversed one in Periods 4 and 6.

In practice

• The facing: a home whose front faces between 82.5° and 97.5° faces Mao, and sits in You, W2: a Dui house of the West group. The Home lens tints Mao on its dial and draws You dashed.
• Near its edges: within 3° of 82.5° or 97.5° many schools read a replacement chart, which Ulune shows beside the main one; within 1.5° the facing is on a void line: at 82.5° the line towards Jia, inside the east; at 97.5° the line towards Yi, inside the east.
• The Flying Stars: built in Period 9, a home facing Mao has the formation Double stars at the facing; built in Period 8, the formation Double stars at the sitting.
• The year: Mao is the Grand Duke’s mountain in a Rabbit year, 2023 and 2035, which the classics suggest not facing for the year’s new beginnings, and the Year Breaker’s in 2029 and 2041, a side they suggest leaving undisturbed by works; with its two neighbours it holds the Three Killings in some years, such as 2025, 2029 and 2033, which they suggest facing rather than having at one’s back. The year’s 5 Yellow visits its palace, the east, in 2029 and 2038.

Across traditions

• The solar terms: on luopan plates that carry a ring of the solar terms, Mao goes with the Spring Equinox, the Sun at 0°, entering Aries in the Western zodiac.
• The prime vertical: Japanese astronomy calls the great circle through the east point, the zenith and the west point the bōyūsen, 卯酉線, the Mao–You line, as the meridian is the Zi–Wu line.
• In Vastu Shastra the east belongs to Indra, king of the gods, and is kept open to the morning light; on the Mediterranean rose it is the levante, the wind from where the sun rises.

Origin and history

The Shuo Gua sets Zhen, thunder, at the east and says that all things come forth there, 萬物出乎震: the east is where the growth of the year and of the day begins. The old rites gave the east to the host: in the Book of Rites the host goes up to the hall by the eastern steps and the guest by the western ones. Mao, the east’s middle mountain, carries the spring equinox on the ring of terms, the day the sun rises over it.

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°: Mao takes every facing from 82.5° up to 97.5°, that edge belonging to the next, and the home sits in the mountain opposite, You. For the Flying Stars, Mao is the middle mountain of a cardinal palace, of the group the classics call the Heaven 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 2, which takes the place of the number going to the centre when, near an edge, it is the mountain that decides.

Correspondences