Si mountain

Meaning

Si, 巳 sì, is the third mountain of the south-east (SE3): the fifteen degrees from 142.5° to 157.5°, centred on 150°. It takes its name from Si, the sixth of the twelve Earthly Branches, the Snake’s, and carries its phase, Fire.

Si is the Snake’s branch, Fire, the late morning and the first month of summer, when yang has fully come out and warmth gathers. On the compass it closes the south-east, up to the line at 157.5° where the south begins: a Fire mountain in the palace of Xun, whose phase is Wood, the Wood that feeds Fire in the order of the phases. A home facing Si looks between south-east and south-south-east and sits in Hai, the Pig’s mountain: a Qian house.

For the Flying Stars Si is the south-east’s Man dragon and counts as yang, like Xun, so a home facing Si has Xun’s main chart: the prosperous one if it was built in Period 8, both of the period’s stars at the back with a Combination of Ten if it was built in Period 9. Its replacement star, 6, is Xun’s too; the two part only at the edges, Si’s upper edge being the line between the south-east and the south.

In practice

• The facing: a home whose front faces between 142.5° and 157.5° faces Si, and sits in Hai, NW3: a Qian house of the West group. The Home lens tints Si on its dial and draws Hai dashed.
• Near its edges: within 3° of 142.5° or 157.5° many schools read a replacement chart, which Ulune shows beside the main one; within 1.5° the facing is on a void line: at 142.5° the line towards Xun, inside the south-east; at 157.5° the line between the south-east and the south, towards Bing.
• The Flying Stars: built in Period 9, a home facing Si has the formations Double stars at the sitting and Combination of Ten, mountain; built in Period 8, the formation Prosperous at sitting and facing.
• The year: Si is the Grand Duke’s mountain in a Snake year, 2025 and 2037, which the classics suggest not facing for the year’s new beginnings, and the Year Breaker’s in 2031 and 2043, 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, Si goes with the Grain Buds, the Sun at 60°, entering Gemini in the Western zodiac.
• On the Western rose: Si’s upper edge, 157.5°, is the south-south-east of the 16-point compass, where the luopan passes from Xun’s palace to Li’s, from wind to fire.

Origin and history

The Snake’s mountain closes a corner, as the Tiger’s, the Monkey’s and the Pig’s do: Yin, Si, Shen and Hai, the four branches that begin the seasons, each stand last in a corner of the luopan, as the four Earth branches stand first. BaZi calls them the places of birth, where Fire, Metal, Water and Wood are born; the Flying Stars count all four as yang, the Man dragons of their corners.

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°: Si takes every facing from 142.5° up to 157.5°, that edge belonging to the next, and the home sits in the mountain opposite, Hai. For the Flying Stars, Si is the third mountain of a corner palace, of the group the classics call the Man dragon, and so counts as yang: when the stars look to it for their flight, it sends a star forward. 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