Wu mountain

Meaning

Wu, 午 wǔ, is the middle mountain of the south (S2): the fifteen degrees from 172.5° to 187.5°, centred on 180°, due south. It takes its name from Wu, the seventh of the twelve Earthly Branches, the Horse’s, and carries its phase, Fire.

Wu is the south itself, 180°, the branch of the Horse, of noon and of the summer solstice: the height of yang and the moment yin is born again. A home facing Wu has its back to Zi, due north, the orientation of China’s palaces, temples and courtyard houses: sitting in the north, facing the sun. It is a Kan house, of the East group.

For the Flying Stars Wu is the south’s Heaven dragon and counts as yin, although the branch Wu is yang in BaZi, and it shares its main chart with Ding. Built in Period 8, a home facing either has both of the period’s stars at the front; built in Period 9, both at the back, with a 5 flying backward, the opposed chart. In every period but the fifth their stars meet in one palace, at the front and at the back by turns, with a Combination of Ten in Periods 3 and 7.

In practice

• The facing: a home whose front faces between 172.5° and 187.5° faces Wu, and sits in Zi, N2: a Kan house of the East group. The Home lens tints Wu on its dial and draws Zi dashed.
• Near its edges: within 3° of 172.5° or 187.5° many schools read a replacement chart, which Ulune shows beside the main one; within 1.5° the facing is on a void line: at 172.5° the line towards Bing, inside the south; at 187.5° the line towards Ding, inside the south.
• The Flying Stars: built in Period 9, a home facing Wu has the formations Double stars at the sitting and Opposed chart; built in Period 8, the formation Double stars at the facing.
• The year: Wu is the Grand Duke’s mountain in a Horse year, 2026 and 2038, which the classics suggest not facing for the year’s new beginnings, and the Year Breaker’s in 2020 and 2032, a side they suggest leaving undisturbed by works; with its two neighbours it holds the Three Killings in some years, such as 2024, 2028 and 2032, which they suggest facing rather than having at one’s back. The year’s 5 Yellow visits its palace, the south, in 2026 and 2035.

Across traditions

• The solar terms: on luopan plates that carry a ring of the solar terms, Wu goes with the Summer Solstice, the Sun at 90°, entering Cancer in the Western zodiac.
• The Meridian Gate, 午門 Wǔmén, the Forbidden City’s great southern gate, takes its name from this direction: the palace sits in Zi and faces Wu.
• On the Mediterranean rose the south is the ostro, or mezzogiorno, ‘midday’, the same image as Wu’s noon; in French the south is still le midi.

Origin and history

To face south was the ruler’s orientation long before the Flying Stars: the Analects say that Shun governed by doing nothing but holding himself with reverence and facing south, 恭己正南面, and ‘to face south’ came to mean to reign. The Form School gives the same orientation its landscape, a mountain behind to the north and water ahead to the south, and the Eight Mansions call such a home, sitting in the north, a Kan house.

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°: Wu takes every facing from 172.5° up to 187.5°, that edge belonging to the next, and the home sits in the mountain opposite, Zi. For the Flying Stars, Wu 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 9, which takes the place of the number going to the centre when, near an edge, it is the mountain that decides.

Correspondences