Earth orbit

Here is how the ancients found to define a year, and how in fact the Five Transformations – Wu Xing – were first formulated, before they got associated with seasons, temperature or Chinese animals.

Observing the earth orbit around the sun and marking its positions at certain moments in time was at the cradle of the Five Elements – or Wu Xing -, rather than the observations of seasons. Also please note that seasons are not caused by the earth orbit around the sun, but seasons are caused by the earth tilted axis.

Wood, before it came to be associated with the Spring Season – and to make these astronomical realities digestible to farmers and commoners -, was to point the phase where our planet is moving away from the sun, which is a phenomena under influence of expansion occurring at the beginning of April. In this phase there is expansion of the Fire principle into Northern territory.
During this time we say we have Wood dominating in the Four Pillars chart for either hemisphere, regardless of local season.

This phase of expansion is true until around 21 June at which point the sun reaches farthest towards the North. Then, when the distance between earth and sun is the greatest – and the sun reached 23° Latitude on the Northern hemisphere, it is when we say we have Fire dominating in the Four Pillars chart, regardless of local seasons.
The earth is at its greatest distance from the sun, an astronomical phenomenon called Aphelion.

At a certain point, and to show global contraction of the Fire principle, around 5 September, the sun of course moves back towards the South pole after it crossed the ecliptic again, this time from North to South. This is when we say we have Metal energy dominating in the Four Pillars chart.

Then, with the sun moving back to 23° latitude on the Southern hemisphere, this moment came to be later popularly associated with the Winter Season, but it is in fact in this phase that there is ultimate contraction of the Fire principle into Southern territory. This is when we say we have Water energy dominating the Four Pillars and we will have Water in the Earthly Branches.
The earth is closest to the sun at around 3, 4 or 5 January, this point called Perihelion.

After this, a new cycle of expansion will start again.

This means that the strength and weakness of elements depends on the earth’s movement and distance to the sun and had no relationship to local climate and condition.

Wood is at its prime in February during Spring in the Northern hemisphere and during Autumn in the Southern hemisphere.
This is how the ancients defined the flow of Qi and it is this Qi flow that should be taken the same for the entire globe.
This huge, astronomically defined, Qi flow is not to be reversed - or otherwise adjusted - for any locality wherever on our planet.

The ancients had observed that the earth magnetic field was affected by the varying distance of the earth to the sun and they measured the changes in Qi in the relationship between solar wind and the magnetosphere around earth and the consequences these changes imposed on earth.

Surely after their astronomical observations, they also observed these changes in nature and humans and disclosed the waxing and waning - the expansion and contraction - on our planet becoming apparent in plant growth and decay.
This way these changes in Qi occurrence became linked to the seasons, but they are not the seasons.

These occurrences were to show that in July the earth was at its greatest distance from the sun and it was then just a matter of finding an analogy to match this astronomical phenomenon to natural conditions and phenomena, like taking the earth’s maximum distance and link it to the highest potential energy we find in Summer on our planet.

It is also just natural that we synchronise astronomical findings to activities on our planet, like the right time for sowing and harvesting, which the Chinese are know to have been meticulous fans of.

Likewise, January came to be known as the month with Qi in its lowest potential of energy, where in reality this was only to mark the moment when the sun was closest to the sun, not to link it specifically to the Winter season.

We cannot change definitions of timing to suit local conditions on either the Northern hemisphere or Southern hemisphere, just because the seasons are reversed or certain marker points for timing are visible on one hemisphere and not on the other hemisphere, for simple reason that human visibility of phenomenon was not the starting point in rationalizing certain astronomical realities.

The Chinese were on the Northern hemisphere, and so their observation that the start of a year was at the Beginning of Spring is just a notional one, an environmental coincidence. The start of a year and the path of the seasons should not be taken as linked together.

If earth reached its point farthest away from the sun, this is true for either hemisphere.
We cannot say that, while the Northern hemisphere is farthest away, the Southern hemisphere is at its closest point to the sun.

One of the arguments you will find bounced back at you most by exponents of the Southern school - and to show that there must be a difference for the Southern hemisphere -, is that the Chinese were not aware of the Southern hemisphere around the time they developed their Time and Space systems.

The Chinese, however, did not develop these systems by observing the seasons, but by noting the earth orbit around the sun and marking the peculiar changes this had in Qi occurrences on our planet.

We already established that the Chinese by all means had been on the Southern hemisphere, but we do not even need to prove this, because when we base a system on astronomical realities – like on the earth orbit around the sun – we do not need to travel into the next village to check if it’s is also valid there.

The earth orbit around the sun is the same for the Northern hemisphere as the earth orbit around the sun for the Southern hemisphere.
In other words, do we even need to be aware of another hemisphere when we do these type of observation and were the Chinese wrong to invent the magnetic needle and proclaim the same geomagnetism valid for the entire globe, so that we also not distinguish between Feng Shui for either hemisphere?

The only difference we should allow to exist between the Northern hemisphere and the Southern hemisphere is that these astronomical occurrences had been researched on the former, not on the latter.

Another difference is that astrologers may need to still research on the strength and weakness of elements when we study a chart of a person born in the Southern hemisphere, for simple reason that any research into the strength of elements was up to recently done for Northern hemisphere charts.

But the need to still assess and look into local strength of elements does not stop at - and is not exclusive to - the Southern hemisphere, as local conditions like time of birth, temperature, darkness or light, smell, moisture and the lot, are as a definition important factors to assess a person’s chart.
 

Back  |   Table of content  |   Next