Solar Term for the month of March 2023, month of Wood Rabbit Yi Mao in the year of Water Rabbit Gui Mao.

Solar Terms for the month of Gui Chou / Water Ox in the year of Ren Yin / Water Tiger

Happy New Year 2023 to all readers of this blog. 

While New Year's Day has been celebrated at the stroke of midnight on December 31st 2022, the Lunar New Year celebrated by Chinese people all around the world is yet to come. 

We are in the final month - Lunar Month 12th, month of Gui Chou / Water Ox in the Chinese Luni-Solar calendar. Traditional Chinese Lunar New Year will be celebrated on 22 January 2023, while Spring Begins / Li Chun starts on 4 February 2023. 

Chinese Lunar New Year Dates for 2023 - Year of the Water Rabbit

春节 2023 / Spring Festival celebrations are coming soon next month in January 2023. The traditional Chinese Lunar New Year Spring Festival has 15 days of celebration. In multiracial and multicultural Singapore, it is allocated 2 days of public holidays. On mainland China, it is an important homecoming event as most people head back to their hometown （家乡）from working in the big main cities or overseas.

The first day of the Chinese Lunar New Year falls on 22 January 2023, which is a Sunday and so the following weekday is allocated a public holiday. Monday itself is also a public holiday and so Tuesday is allocated a public holiday, making it a long holiday weekend of 4 days here in Singapore.  

The eve of Chinese New Year is in itself an eventful day, as it is the final day of "Spring Cleaning", and the final touches are made to prepare the home and office premises to welcome the new year. The dinner on the eve of the new year has special cultural significance in the Chinese festive calendar as it is called the "Reunion Dinner", where once a year all family members are gathered to have a sumptous meal together. 

In Chinese tradition, words withe auspicious meanings are used during this festive period and so many items are embellished with auspicious names in well-wishes. For example, as it is the year of the Rabbit, the Rabbit is embellished with the word "Gold" and so it is the year of the Gold Rabbit. The Jade Rabbit is another cultural symbol with its own mythology story. It is said to reside on the moon making immortality elixirs, and keeps company with Chang-Er who flew to the moon. You will find both Gold Rabbit and Jade Rabbit being used for the coming Chinese Lunar New Year. 

玉兔呈祥

金兔报喜

Although "Gold" is one of the elements of the Five Elements Theory (representing Metal), the word Gold when used for auspicious meanings refers to money and wealth, luxury, grandeur, etc. The actual element accompanying the year of the Rabbit is Water. It is the year of Gui Mao or Water (Yin) Rabbit. The colour represented by Water in the Five Elements Theory is black. Black, although a convenient colour to wear for clothing, is not considered an auspicious colour culturally and so it is used minimally. 

水 (water)，木 (wood)

In the 60 Jia Zi sequence used in the Chinese luni-solar calendar, the combination of Gui Mao / Yin Water Rabbit is 40th pair or 60 pairs starting with Jia Zi / Yang Wood Rat. 

Rabbit itself contains the element of Yin Wood. The two elements for the year are Water and Wood.

Tiger Tail Rabbit Head 兔头虎尾

Solar Term for the beginning of the Water Rabbit year is on 4th of February 2023. Up until 4th of February, it is still the Water Tiger year as the changeover date is the Solar Term of Spring Begins / Li Chun (立春). For those born between the Lunar New Year and Spring Begins / Li Chun, they are said to be "Tiger Tail Rabbit Head". In my consultations for Ba Zi Birth Charts, we use the Spring Begins Solar Term for the year pillar. 

Solar Terms for the month of Gui Mao, Yin Water / Rabbit 癸卯 in the year of Ren Yin, Yang Water / Tiger 壬寅

We have already moved into the second month of the year of the Water Tiger, Ren Yin 2022 in the Chinese luni-solar calendar on 5 March 2022. 

The beginning of the month is marked by the Solar Term "Jin Ze" or translated as "Awaken Insects" that started at 22:43 hours on the 5th of March, 2022. 

In the Chinese luni-solar calendar, the 60 sexagenary pairs sequence alternate on a Yin - Yang - Yin - Yang basis, and so while February was a Yang Water Tiger month, March is a Yin Water Rabbit month. April will be Yang month again, and so on and so forth. 

The elements of the month are Water (癸 Gui / Yin Water) and Wood (卯 Mao / Rabbit).

You may be wondering why the name Jin Ze / Awaken Insects was used to name this second month. The ancient Chinese observed the natural phenomena in their surrounding environment. It was observed that insects were beginning to awaken from their winter hibernation, and hence gave this name to the second month. It is useful to note that it is not the other way around, as in, the observed phenomena of insects awakening from hibernation and hence it is the second Solar Term month. China covers a huge geographical area with varied weather systems according to the latitude. The months are calculated on the solar path of the earth's orbit around the sun (via Gnomon stick sun shadow recording) and then names assigned (and not via observed seasonal phenomena). To further explain, Gregorian calendar months are named after Roman gods, leaders, festivals, and numbers. It does not mean that if you don't have Roman gods, leaders and festivals then the calendar is not applicable.  

Spring Equinox falls on 20 March 2022. Due to the tilt of planet Earth's axis, the various geographical zones on the surface of the planet experience seasonal changes, caused by the changing amount of sun light and heat received. On the day of the Equinox, planet Earth gets approximately equal 12 hours of day and night. Also the sun rises exactly at cardinal due East direction (90 degrees) and sets at cardinal due West direction (270 degrees). 

In Ba Zi birth chart analysis, we use the Day Master element (the Tian Gan representing the day of your birth) and compare it with the year's and the month's elements to get what we call the 10 Spirits / 十神 / shi shen. From the 10 Spirits, we can decipher the signals and information from the universe according to one's Ba Zi chart for the annual and monthly dimensions. You can go deeper into the day and the si-chen (2 hour block) but usually the annual and 10-year pillars are cover sufficient grounds already in a Ba Zi birth chart appointment.  

Book your Ba Zi appointment today.