Xu mountain

Meaning

Xu, 戌 xū, is the first mountain of the north-west (NW1): the fifteen degrees from 292.5° to 307.5°, centred on 300°. It takes its name from Xu, the eleventh of the twelve Earthly Branches, the Dog’s, and carries its phase, Earth.

Xu is the Dog’s branch, Earth, the last month of autumn and the evening, dry ground that keeps the year’s Fire as yang goes home. On the compass it opens the north-west, from the line at 292.5° where the west ends. A home facing Xu looks between west-north-west and north-west and sits in Chen, the Dragon’s mountain, at the south-east: a Xun house, of the East group like every home facing the north-west.

For the Flying Stars Xu is the north-west’s Earth dragon and counts as yin, unlike Qian and Hai, so its main chart is its own, the mirror of Chen’s across the compass: prosperous for a home built in Period 7, reversed and softened by the pearl string for one built in Period 8, with both of the period’s stars at the back for one built in Period 9. The prosperous chart comes to it in Periods 3, 5 and 7.

In practice

• The facing: a home whose front faces between 292.5° and 307.5° faces Xu, and sits in Chen, SE1: a Xun house of the East group. The Home lens tints Xu on its dial and draws Chen dashed.
• Near its edges: within 3° of 292.5° or 307.5° many schools read a replacement chart, which Ulune shows beside the main one; within 1.5° the facing is on a void line: at 292.5° the line between the west and the north-west, towards Xin; at 307.5° the line towards Qian, inside the north-west.
• The Flying Stars: built in Period 9, a home facing Xu has the formation Double stars at the sitting; built in Period 8, the formations Reversed and Pearl string.
• The year: Xu is the Grand Duke’s mountain in a Dog year, 2030 and 2042, which the classics suggest not facing for the year’s new beginnings, and the Year Breaker’s in 2024 and 2036, a side they suggest leaving undisturbed by works. The year’s 5 Yellow visits its palace, the north-west, in 2032 and 2041.

Across traditions

• The solar terms: on luopan plates that carry a ring of the solar terms, Xu goes with the Frost’s Descent, the Sun at 210°, entering Scorpio in the Western zodiac.
• Inui: Japanese names the north-west after the Dog and the Pig, whose mountains, Xu and Hai, flank Qian; Xu is its first half, inu.

Origin and history

With Chen across from it, Xu makes the axis of the Dragon and the Dog, two Earth branches that BaZi counts among its storehouses and the luopan sets at the head of the two corners Chinese cosmology calls the door of earth and the gate of heaven. Xu carries the Frost’s Descent on the ring of terms, the last of autumn’s terms before winter begins at Qian.

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°: Xu takes every facing from 292.5° up to 307.5°, that edge belonging to the next, and the home sits in the mountain opposite, Chen. For the Flying Stars, Xu 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 6, which takes the place of the number going to the centre when, near an edge, it is the mountain that decides.

Correspondences