East vs West

[PaganPriest]

I am a Horse/Taurus. My ex wife is Rat/Virgo. In the Western zodiac our signs are very compatible, in the Chinese zodiac they are totally incompatible. As she is now my ex maybe I should have paid more attention to my Chinese horoscopes.

Anyone else have similar experiences?

[npb]

i know some of chinese astrology, but no western astrology.

for compatibilities we have to take a look not only year but also DOB+time

[KarenChantel]

yes, npb is right... what the westen astrolgy says is more to the characters.
do u think that everyone in the world, their fate can only be consider into 12 types? i don't...
i cant make any comment about the western cos i only konw little and is not an expert to comment...
but in chinese, we cannot rely on horscope alone to say if 2 persons are compatible or not... need need to compare their bazi or zhi wei dou shu cos this are what that tells us about our destiny and fate... the chinese zodiac animals are mainly for characters... even chinese zodiac, there maybe a total of 8640 outcome....

[Rudy]

Karen,
What about in my case where.. I'm an aries in western zodiac and rabbit in chinese zodia... my readings outlook at time go the opposite of each other. And this is not about compatibility with another person.

[yoyocue]

I am a Horse/Taurus. My ex wife is Rat/Virgo.

I think the compatibility on either eastern or western astrology is not simple like you said. On eastern astrology, here is meant Chinese astrology because vedic astrology is one of eastern astrology, we did not just look the birth year for the compatibility. On western astrology or vedic astrology, we did not just look the sign of the sun for compatibility.

[drrnwynbchnbrgr]

date of birth...  western astrology used 12 month calendar "sun"...... chinese astrology uses 13 month lunar calender  dates of birth in be different in each system  that explains the reason you are seeing different and opposing signs ....   chinese  numerology and western numerology are also very different  western form  uses what is know as a life path number /coming from your date of birth  chinese numerology does not consider this to be of any importance .... and  again just as with astrology the chinese form uses the lunar calendar...

[drrnwynbchnbrgr]

date of birth...  western astrology used 12 month calendar "sun"...... chinese astrology uses 13 month lunar calender  dates of birth in be different in each system  that explains the reason you are seeing different and opposing signs ....   chinese  numerology and western numerology are also very different  western form  uses what is know as a life path number /coming from your date of birth  chinese numerology does not consider this to be of any importance .... and  again just as with astrology the chinese form uses the lunar calendar...

[Rudy]

date of birth...  western astrology used 12 month calendar "sun"...... chinese astrology uses 13 month lunar calender  dates of birth in be different in each system  that explains the reason you are seeing different and opposing signs ....   chinese  numerology and western numerology are also very different  western form  uses what is know as a life path number /coming from your date of birth  chinese numerology does not consider this to be of any importance .... and  again just as with astrology the chinese form uses the lunar calendar...

yes I understand the difference... but.... then which is more accurate? which should you rely upon?

If you were a paying customer, what would you choose?

So all in all, what does it say about astrology in general?

[drrnwynbchnbrgr]

the choice would fall under  "faith"     for me a little bit of this a little bit of that  goes a long way . For i see it this way, there is truth in all knowledge  .what you cant get from one, may lay within another .

[drrnwynbchnbrgr]

some might yes and look at it this way both systems convey the same insight   the whole is like a soup , both contain all the same ingredents    one system might use the meat as there focal point  where the other puts the liquid  as the main part .

[KarenChantel]

Karen,
What about in my case where.. I'm an aries in western zodiac and rabbit in chinese zodia... my readings outlook at time go the opposite of each other. And this is not about compatibility with another person.

so sorry my reply came so late, i am really busy this period...

have u read my post on the chinese zodiac section name of post is Chinese Metaphysics? there u can get the answer on this question... in our chinese metaphysics under the zodiac sign, there can have 8640 outcome... if u still have any questions after reading that, feel free to post up...

[KarenChantel]

date of birth...  western astrology used 12 month calendar "sun"...... chinese astrology uses 13 month lunar calender  dates of birth in be different in each system  that explains the reason you are seeing different and opposing signs ....   chinese  numerology and western numerology are also very different  western form  uses what is know as a life path number /coming from your date of birth  chinese numerology does not consider this to be of any importance .... and  again just as with astrology the chinese form uses the lunar calendar...

in chinese, when did we start using 13 months???

is it an new invention by u, if so can share... i wanna learn this new tactic...

heehee! maybe i still very out dated like those ancestor from the past... we only use 12 months... beside, not every year has got 13 LUNAR months so how to use 13 months for every reading...

[drrnwynbchnbrgr]

sorry    my mistake  i am posting  reference in reply to your post  


A lunar calendar is a calendar that is based on cycles of the moon phase. The only widely used purely lunar calendar is the Islamic calendar, whose year always consists of 12 lunar months. A feature of a purely lunar year, on the Islamic calendar model, is that the calendar ceases to be linked to the seasons, and drifts each year by 11 or 12 days, and comes back to the position it had in relation to the solar year every 33 or 34 Islamic years. It is used predominantly for religious purposes. In Saudi Arabia it is also used for commercial purposes.

Most lunar calendars are in fact lunisolar calendars. That is, months are kept on a lunar cycle, but then intercalary months are added to bring the lunar cycles into synchronisation with the solar year.

Since there are about twelve lunations (synodic months) in a solar year, this period (354.37 days) is sometimes referred to as a lunar year.



Lunisolar calendars

Most lunar calendars are in fact lunisolar, such as the Chinese, Hebrew, and Hindu calendars, and most calendar systems used in antiquity. The reason for this is that a year is not evenly divisible by an exact number of lunations, so without the addition of intercalary months the seasons will drift each year. This results in a thirteen-month year every two or three years.



Start of the lunar month

Lunar calendars differ as to which day is the first day of the month.

For some lunar calendars, such as the Chinese calendar, the first day of a month is the day when a new moon appears in a particular time zone.

Many other lunar calendars are based on the first sighting of a lunar crescent.



Length of the lunar month

The length of a month orbit/cycle is difficult to predict and varies from its average value. Because observations are subject to uncertainty and weather conditions, and astronomical methods are highly complex, there have been attempts to create fixed arithmetical rules.

The average length of the synodic month is 29.530589 days. This means the length of a month is alternately 29 and 30 days (termed respectively hollow and full). The distribution of hollow and full months can be determined using continued fractions, and examining successive approximations for the length of the month in terms of fractions of a day. In the list below, after the number of days listed in the numerator, an integer number of months as listed in the denominator have been completed:


These fractions can be used in the construction of lunar calendars, or in combination with a solar calendar to produce a lunisolar calendar. The 49-month cycle was proposed as the basis of an alternative Easter computation by Isaac Newton around 1700 [1]. The tabular Islamic calendar's 360-month cycle is equivalent to 24×15 months minus a correction of one day.

[edit] Old English 13-month lunar year

In England, a calendar of thirteen months of 28 days each, plus one extra day, known as "a year and a day" was still in use up to Tudor times. This would be a hybrid calendar that had substituted regular weeks of seven days for actual quarter-lunations, so that one month had exactly four weeks, regardless of the actual moon phase. The "lunar year" is here considered to have 364 days, resulting in a solar year of "a year and a day".

As a religious tradition, the thirteen-month years survived among European peasants for more than a millennium[citation needed] after the adoption of the Julian Calendar and now the Gregorian Calendar.

[drrnwynbchnbrgr]

Lunisolar calendar

The 60-year cycle consists of two separate cycles interacting with each other. The first is the cycle of ten heavenly stems, namely the Five Elements (in order Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, and Water) in their Yin and Yang forms.

The second is the cycle of the twelve Zodiac animal signs (生肖 shēngxiāo) or Earthly Branches . They are in order as follows: the rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep (ram or goat), monkey, rooster, dog, and boar .

This combination of 5 elements × 12 animals creates the 60-year cycle, which always starts with Wood Rat and ends with Water Boar. Since the zodiac animal cycle of 12 is divisible by two, every zodiac sign can also only occur in either Yin or Yang: the dragon is always yang, the snake is always yin, etc. The current cycle began in the year 1984 (as shown in "Table of the sixty year calendar" below).

When trying to traverse the Lunisolar calendar, an easy rule to follow is that years that end in an even number are yang, those that end with an odd number are yin. The cycle proceeds as follows:

   * If the year ends in 0 it is Yang Metal.
   * If the year ends in 1 it is Yin Metal.
   * If the year ends in 2 it is Yang Water.
   * If the year ends in 3 it is Yin Water.
   * If the year ends in 4 it is Yang Wood.
   * If the year ends in 5 it is Yin Wood.
   * If the year ends in 6 it is Yang Fire.
   * If the year ends in 7 it is Yin Fire.
   * If the year ends in 8 it is Yang Earth.
   * If the year ends in 9 it is Yin Earth.

However, since the (traditional) Chinese zodiac follows the (lunisolar) Chinese calendar, the switch over date is the Chinese New Year, not January 1 as in the Gregorian calendar. Therefore, a person who was born in January or early February has the sign of the previous year. For example, if a person was born in January 1970, his or her element would still be Yin Earth, not Yang Metal. Similarly, although 1990 was called the year of the horse, anyone born from January 1 to January 26, 1990 was in fact born in the Year of the Snake (the sign of the previous year), because the 1990 Year of the Horse did not begin until January 27, 1990. For this reason, many online sign calculators (and Chinese restaurant place mats) will give a person the wrong sign if he/she was born in January or early February.

The start of a new Zodiac is also celebrated on Chinese New Year along with many other customs.

[drrnwynbchnbrgr]

The Chinese calendar is a lunisolar calendar, incorporating elements of a lunar calendar with those of a solar calendar. This measure of time is not exclusive to China, but followed by many other Asian cultures. However, it is often referred to by the Western cultures as the Chinese calendar. In most of Asia today, the Gregorian calendar is used for day to day activities, but the Chinese calendar is still used for marking traditional East Asian holidays such as the Lunar New Year (Spring Festival), and in China the Duan Wu festival, and the Mid-Autumn Festival, and in astrology, such as choosing the most auspicious date for a wedding or the opening of a building. Because each month follows one cycle of the moon, it is also used to determine the phases of the moon.

In China, the traditional calendar is known as the "agricultural calendar" (traditional Chinese: 農曆; simplified Chinese: 农历; pinyin: nónglì) while the Gregorian calendar is known as the "common calendar" (traditional Chinese: 公曆; simplified Chinese: 公历; pinyin: gōnglì) or "Common calendar" . Another name for the Chinese calendar is the "Yin Calendar" (traditional Chinese: 陰曆; simplified Chinese: 阴历; pinyin: yīnlì) in reference to the lunar aspect of the calendar, whereas the Gregorian calendar is the "Yang Calendar" (traditional Chinese: 陽曆; simplified Chinese: 阳历; pinyin: yánglì) in reference to its solar properties. The Chinese calendar was also called the "old calendar" (traditional Chinese: 舊曆; simplified Chinese: 旧历; pinyin: jìulì) after the "new calendar" (traditional Chinese: 新曆; simplified Chinese: 新历; pinyin: xīnlì), i.e. the Gregorian calendar, was adopted as the official calendar. The traditional calendar is also often referred to as "the Xia Calendar", following a comment in the Shiji which states that under the Xia Dynasty, the year began on the second moon after the winter solstice (just as in the modern calendar).

The current year in the Chinese calendar is the Year of the Earth Rat (year of Wù Zǐ, 戊子). It lasts from 7 February 2008 to 25 January 2009. Based on traditional beliefs, some form of the calendar has been in use for almost five millennia. Based on archaeological evidence some form of it has been in use for three and a half millennia.



Early history

The earliest evidence of the Chinese calendar is found on oracle bones of the Shang dynasty (late second millennium BC), which seem to describe a lunisolar year of twelve months, with a possible intercalary thirteenth, or even fourteenth, added empirically to prevent calendar drift. The Sexagenary cycle for recording days was already in use. Tradition holds that, in that era, the year began on the first new moon after the winter solstice.

Early Eastern Zhou texts, such as the Spring and Autumn Annals, provide better understanding of the calendars used in the Zhou dynasty. One year usually had 12 months, which were alternatively 29 and 30 days long (with an additional day added from time to time, to catch up with "drifts" between the calendar and the actual moon cycle), and intercalary months were added in an arbitrary fashion, at the end of the year.

These arbitrary rules on day and month intercalation caused the calendars of each state to be slightly different, at times. Thus, texts like the Annals will often state whether the calendar they use (the calendar of Lu) is in phase with the Royal calendar (used by the Zhou kings).

Although tradition holds that in the Zhou, the year began on the new moon which preceded the winter solstice, the Spring and Autumn Annals seem to indicate that (in Lu at least) the Yin calendar (the calendar used in Shang dynasty, with years beginning on the first new moon after the winter solstice) was in use until the middle of the 7th century, and that the beginning of the year was shifted back one month around 650 BC.

By the beginning of the Warring States, progress in astronomy and mathematics allowed the creation of calculated calendars (where intercalary months and days are set by a rule, and not arbitrarily). The sìfēn 四分 (quarter remainder) calendar, which began about 484 BC, was the first calculated Chinese calendar, so named because it used a solar year of 365¼ days, along with a 19-year (235-month) Rule Cycle, known in the West as the Metonic cycle. The year began on the new moon preceding the winter solstice, and intercalary months were inserted at the end of the year.

In 256 BC, as the last Zhou king ceded his territory to Qin, a new calendar (the Qin calendar) began to be used. It followed the same principles as the Sifen calendar, except the year began one month before (the second new moon before the winter solstice, which now fell in the second month of the year). The Qin calendar was used during the Qin dynasty, and in the beginning of the Western Han dynasty.

[edit] Taichu calendar

The Emperor Wu of the Western Han dynasty introduced reforms that have governed the Chinese calendar ever since. His Tàichū 太初 (Grand Inception) calendar of 104 BC had a year with the winter solstice in the eleventh month and designated as intercalary any calendar month (a month of 29 or 30 whole days) during which the sun does not pass a principal term (that is, remained within the same sign of the zodiac throughout). Because the sun's mean motion was used to calculate the jiéqì (traditional Chinese: 節氣; simplified Chinese: 节气) (or seasonal markings) until 1645, this intercalary month was equally likely to occur after any month of the year. The conjunction of the sun and moon (the astronomical new moon) was calculated using the mean motions of both the sun and moon until 619, the second year of the Tang dynasty, when chronologists began to use true motions modeled using two offset opposing parabolas (with small linear and cubic components). Unfortunately, the parabolas did not meet smoothly at the mean motion, but met with a discontinuity or jump.

[edit] True sun and moon

With the introduction of Western astronomy into China via the Jesuits, the motions of both the sun and moon began to be calculated with sinusoids in the 1645 Shíxiàn calendar (時憲書, Book of the Conformity of Time) of the Qing dynasty, made by the Jesuit Adam Schall. The true motion of the sun was now used to calculate the jiéqì, which caused the intercalary month to often occur after the second through the ninth months, but rarely after the tenth through first months. A few autumn-winter periods have one or two calendar months where the sun enters two signs of the zodiac, interspersed with two or three calendar months where the sun stays within one sign.


Calendar rules

The following rules outline the Chinese calendar since c.104 BC. Note that the rules allow either mean or true motions of the Sun and Moon to be used, depending on the historical period.

  1. The months are lunar months. This means the first day of each month beginning at midnight is the day of the astronomical new moon. (Note, however, that a "day" in the Chinese calendar begins at 11 p.m. and not at midnight)
  2. Each year has 12 regular months, which are numbered in sequence (1 to 12) and have alternative names. Every second or third year has an intercalary month (閏月 rùnyuè), which may come after any regular month. It has the same number as the preceding regular month, but is designated intercalary.
  3. Every other jiéqì of the Chinese solar year is equivalent to an entry of the sun into a sign of the tropical zodiac (a principal term or cusp).
  4. The sun always passes the winter solstice (enters Capricorn) during month 11.
  5. If there are 12 months between two successive occurrences of month 11, at least one of these 12 months must be a month during which the sun remains within the same zodiac sign throughout (no principal term or cusp occurs within it). If only one such month occurs, it is designated intercalary, but if two such months occur, only the first is designated intercalary.
  6. The times of the astronomical new moons and the sun entering a zodiac sign are determined in the Chinese Time Zone by the Purple Mountain Observatory (紫金山天文台 Zǐjīnshān Tiānwéntái) outside Nanjing using modern astronomical equations. Chinese Americans use Nanjing Calendar instead of defining a local one. To them, the new Moon can occur on the last day of the previous month according to their local USA time. For example, A new Moon occurred on May 16, 2007 by USA time, but Chinese Americans still regard May 17, 2007 as the first day of a new month. Further, they define the boundaries of the day according to a USA local time zone. Thus rule number 1 is not followed in this case,.

The zodiac sign which the sun enters during the month and the ecliptic longitude of that entry point usually determine the number of a regular month. Month 1, zhēngyuè, literally means principal month. All other months are literally numbered, second month, third month, etc.