四象, the four symbols
The Four Celestial Animals
Four creatures guard the four directions, born from the four quadrants of the sky and woven into the seasons and feng shui.
The four
Direction, season, element, color
- Azure Dragon, 青龍, east. Spring, Wood, blue-green. Growth, spring rain, good fortune. Benevolent, unlike the Western dragon.
- Vermilion Bird, 朱雀, south. Summer, Fire, red. The sun and warmth. Not the same as the Phoenix, 鳳凰.
- White Tiger, 白虎, west. Autumn, Metal, white. Righteousness and valor, driving away evil.
- Black Tortoise, 玄武, north. Winter, Water, black. A tortoise entwined with a snake, longevity and endurance.
A fifth, central symbol, the Yellow Dragon, 黃龍, Earth, is a later addition to complete the five phases. Direction, season, element, and color are canonical; finer personality readings are loose.
The armchair
How the four sit around a home
In Form school, a good site nests like an armchair: the Black Tortoise as solid higher ground behind, the Vermilion Bird as open low ground in front, the bright hall, 明堂; the Azure Dragon higher on the left; and the White Tiger lower on the right. Left and right are read from the back of the site facing outward. The bright hall should be open enough to receive energy and enclosed enough to hold it, storing wind and gathering qi, 藏風聚氣. This armchair is the same shape as the commanding position at the scale of a desk or a bed.
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