You mountain

Meaning

You, 酉 yǒu, is the middle mountain of the west (W2): the fifteen degrees from 262.5° to 277.5°, centred on 270°, due west. It takes its name from You, the tenth of the twelve Earthly Branches, the Rooster’s, and carries its phase, Metal.

You is the west itself, 270°, the branch of the Rooster, of sunset and of the heart of autumn, when the harvest is in. At the equinoxes the sun sets due west nearly everywhere on Earth, over You. A home facing You looks to that sunset and sits in Mao, due east: a Zhen house, of the East group.

For the Flying Stars You is the west’s Heaven dragon and counts as yin, as the branch does in BaZi, and it shares its main chart with Xin, the mirror of Mao’s and Yi’s across the compass. Built in Period 8, a home facing either has both of the period’s stars at the front; built in Period 9, at the back. 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 262.5° and 277.5° faces You, and sits in Mao, E2: a Zhen house of the East group. The Home lens tints You on its dial and draws Mao dashed.
• Near its edges: within 3° of 262.5° or 277.5° many schools read a replacement chart, which Ulune shows beside the main one; within 1.5° the facing is on a void line: at 262.5° the line towards Geng, inside the west; at 277.5° the line towards Xin, inside the west.
• The Flying Stars: built in Period 9, a home facing You has the formation Double stars at the sitting; built in Period 8, the formation Double stars at the facing.
• The year: You is the Grand Duke’s mountain in a Rooster year, 2029 and 2041, which the classics suggest not facing for the year’s new beginnings, and the Year Breaker’s in 2023 and 2035, a side they suggest leaving undisturbed by works; with its two neighbours it holds the Three Killings in some years, such as 2027, 2031 and 2035, which they suggest facing rather than having at one’s back. The year’s 5 Yellow visits its palace, the west, in 2024 and 2033.

Across traditions

• The solar terms: on luopan plates that carry a ring of the solar terms, You goes with the Autumn Equinox, the Sun at 180°, entering Libra in the Western zodiac.
• In Vastu Shastra the west belongs to Varuna, lord of the waters, where Feng Shui sets Metal and the lake; on the Mediterranean rose it is the ponente, the wind from where the sun sets.

Origin and history

The Shuo Gua sets Dui, the lake, at the west and calls it the very middle of autumn, where all things rejoice, 說言乎兌: the joy of a harvest gathered. You, the west’s middle mountain, carries the autumn equinox on the ring of terms, the day the sun sets over it, and with Mao across from it makes the line of the equinoxes, the compass’s other axis after Zi and Wu.

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°: You takes every facing from 262.5° up to 277.5°, that edge belonging to the next, and the home sits in the mountain opposite, Mao. For the Flying Stars, You 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 7, which takes the place of the number going to the centre when, near an edge, it is the mountain that decides.

Correspondences