Chinese Astrology

Lesson 1: Introduction To Chinese Astrology - The Basics

This lesson will give an overview of the history of Chinese astrology and the Chinese calendar systems used in its construction. Next, it will examine the twelve animal signs, the concepts of yin and yang, and the five elements as they present a foundation for our further study.

Chinese Astrology - First Things First

China has a long and colorful history, and represents one of the most ancient civilizations still intact. While a great deal of ancient wisdom from the Western world has been lost or destroyed, the wisdom of the ancient Chinese is still available to us in many forms, one of which is its wealth of astrological information. Chinese astrology dates back further than Western astrology; in fact, the first bits and pieces of information archaeologists have found were inscriptions located on Oracle bones!

A great deal of colorful and interesting mythology surrounds the Chinese astrological tradition - whenever possible, I have included either stories in my lectures or links to these fascinating stories for your reading enjoyment.

Chinese astrology differs from Western astrology in many ways. Western astrology is very accurate, but analysis focuses on profiling the character of an individual rather than his or her fortune or fate. In contrast, much of Chinese astrology focuses on a person's life path and what fortunate and unfortunate events may befall them. Feng Shui is intimately tied to Chinese astrology, as inauspicious "stars" in a chart or home location can be remedied with "cures" such as a wind-chime in a carefully chosen location, or a fishbowl containing nine fish in another. As we will learn in a later lesson, combinations of stars in a sector of your home are contrasted with your "signature" stars to determine how spending time in that location will affect you.

An astrologer can improve accuracy and usefulness of his or her readings by learning BOTH systems well enough to blend them into a rich composite of information. Many attempts have been made to map one into another - we will also discuss the similarities and differences between Western and Eastern astrology in a later lesson.

Chinese astrology also centers around the concept of balance, not only between elemental correspondences, but also between the opposite concepts of "yin" and "yang" as we will learn in the rest of this course.

Imbalances in any way are thought to be responsible for all ills that befall us. Chinese astrology and Feng Shui are used in Chinese medicine, acupuncture, and many forms of fortune telling and business analysis. Just like Western astrology, "real" Chinese astrology differs greatly from the pop books or Chinese restaurant napkins that only concentrate on your animal sign. In this class, we will learn several methods of analysis that result in a unique description of every person.

Don't be surprised also if you find web sites and books that give different names to terms we use - there are MANY schools of thought in Chinese astrology. I will attempt in my explanations to provide all the different names and terms that I am familiar with for things that have multiple correspondences.

Until a few short years ago, the information available on this subject was limited in the English language - and in the entire Western world. Only recently has information about the more advanced topics of Chinese astrology been available here. I have been lucky enough to travel to both China and Hong Kong - where I was able to procure some additional material. These will not be used in this class as I cannot expect you to fly across the ocean to purchase textbooks, but I will use "pearls of wisdom" from them in my lectures from time to time.

We are about to embark upon a magnificent journey into this ancient and amazingly accurate topic I hope you all find this newly available subject as fascinating as I do!