Wei mountain

Meaning

Wei, 未 wèi, is the first mountain of the south-west (SW1): the fifteen degrees from 202.5° to 217.5°, centred on 210°. It takes its name from Wei, the eighth of the twelve Earthly Branches, the Goat’s, and carries its phase, Earth.

Wei is the Goat’s branch, Earth, the last month of summer and the early afternoon, warm dry ground where fruit ripens and gains its flavour. On the compass it opens the south-west, from the line at 202.5° where the south ends. A home facing Wei looks between south-south-west and south-west and sits in Chou, the Ox’s mountain, at the north-east: a Gen house, of the West group like every home facing the south-west.

For the Flying Stars Wei is the south-west’s Earth dragon and counts as yin, unlike Kun and Shen, so its main chart is its own, the mirror of Chou’s across the compass. Built in Period 8, a home facing Wei had the prosperous chart, with the Combination of Ten for the mountain stars and an opposed chart; built in Period 9, it has both of the period’s stars at the front. The prosperous chart comes to it in Periods 2, 5 and 8, as to Chou, the periods of the three Earth stars.

In practice

• The facing: a home whose front faces between 202.5° and 217.5° faces Wei, and sits in Chou, NE1: a Gen house of the West group. The Home lens tints Wei on its dial and draws Chou dashed.
• Near its edges: within 3° of 202.5° or 217.5° many schools read a replacement chart, which Ulune shows beside the main one; within 1.5° the facing is on a void line: at 202.5° the line between the south and the south-west, towards Ding; at 217.5° the line towards Kun, inside the south-west.
• The Flying Stars: built in Period 9, a home facing Wei has the formation Double stars at the facing; built in Period 8, the formations Prosperous at sitting and facing, Combination of Ten, mountain and Opposed chart.
• The year: Wei is the Grand Duke’s mountain in a Goat year, 2027 and 2039, which the classics suggest not facing for the year’s new beginnings, and the Year Breaker’s in 2021 and 2033, a side they suggest leaving undisturbed by works. The year’s 5 Yellow visits its palace, the south-west, in 2028 and 2037.

Across traditions

• The solar terms: on luopan plates that carry a ring of the solar terms, Wei goes with the Major Heat, the Sun at 120°, entering Leo in the Western zodiac.
• Hitsujisaru: Japanese names the south-west after the Goat and the Monkey, whose mountains, Wei and Shen, flank Kun; Wei is its first half, hitsuji.

Origin and history

Wei closes summer, and with it the long summer that Chinese medicine and the calendar of the five phases give to Earth, 長夏, the season between summer and autumn when the heat turns damp and ripens what it touched. On the luopan the Earth branch Wei stands at the head of Kun’s corner, the trigram of the earth itself: the south-west is Earth three times over, branch, trigram and palace, with only Shen, the Monkey’s Metal, at its end.

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°: Wei takes every facing from 202.5° up to 217.5°, that edge belonging to the next, and the home sits in the mountain opposite, Chou. For the Flying Stars, Wei 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 2, which takes the place of the number going to the centre when, near an edge, it is the mountain that decides.

Correspondences