Folklore Friday: Tai Sui, Grand Duke Jupiter

Hey guys, welcome to Learn Feng Shui, where you'll learn Feng Shui from a classical point of view taken out the myth and superstition. If you like weekly tips as well as fun folklore tales, you'll enjoy learning Feng Shui with me. Hey guys, welcome to Folklore Friday. Today I'm going to talk to you about the Thai soy or what is called the Grand Duke Jupiter. I made a podcast before about what is called the Grand Duke, but I wanted to revisit this subject and talk a little bit more about some of the folklore behind it.

So today again we're talking about what is called the Thai soy, the Grand Duke, the Grand Duke Jupiter, and you may have heard the term before, you don't want to offend the Grand Duke or you're offending the Grand Duke. So let's first look at what the Grand Duke is in terms of Feng Shui and how you offend him. So the Grand Duke, it really just is the animal sign that governs the year. So each year this move and each month of this move and even every day this moves. So you may have a Grand Duke for the year, the month and the day.

And it's just it just sits with the animal sign that is governing that time. So for example, this year is the year of the ox. So the Grand Duke is going to be at where the side of the ox is within the compass. So it's going to be in the northeast. If you're more familiar with the A directions and what it's called the 24 mountains, you may be familiar with the terms, you know, northeast one, two and three.

And the animal sign of ox. It's at northeast one. So when you're offending the Grand Duke, it really is just sitting with your face facing the direction that the Grand Duke is for the year. What you really want to avoid doing again is just sitting a face in that area. So actually having your back to the area and working in the area is actually really good for the year because the Indian Linda added supportive energy that actually makes you feel like you have more authority and can give you a, you know, make you an authority on things.

So if you sit facing that direction, it said that can actually cause the opposite problem. So my cause you some problems with your work and might you might offend people when you speak to them. And it also might help cause health problems for the elderly. And so in terms of Feng Shui, this is what the Grand Duke does every year. So taking a look a little bit more closely at the folklore and some of the kind of maybe not really superstition behind it.

But just some of the personification and embodiment of the Tai Soi. Let's kind of look a little bit at the Chinese calendar system. So the Chinese calendar system goes off. What is called the 60 jozy. The 60 jozy is just the 60 different animal signs.

So as you may know, there's 12 different animal signs, you know, one for each month of the year. But there's also a combines with five different elements and in a young polarity. So the five elements are water, wood, fire, earth, and metal. And they combine to make you know, with these 12 animal signs to make a total of 60 different animal signs. So the Tai Soi and the embodiment of these Tai Sois, there's actually 60 different statues that represent each of the 60, what is called the jozy.

And it literally just translates to woodrat because that's the first animal sign in the cycle. And so again, there's a 60 different statues. But they 60 different statues represent something different. I'm not going to go over each one of them. But let's kind of look a little bit closer at the Tai Soi and some of these presentations and depictions of the Tai Soi.

I think one of the biggest mistakes people make when they're looking at Chinese astrology and they're looking at different things like the Tai Soi and all that is that they think it really represents a real person or real animal. You know, what this is is actually astrological formations, constellations, houses and all that stuff just like you get with Western astrology. I am not familiar with Western astrology and I don't read Western astrology. And so I don't know a lot about you know different like houses and all that stuff. However, here from TauaSarftry.blogspot, it talks about the fact that a Tai Soi or the Grand Duke Jupiter was an imaginary Jupiter that followed the exact path of Jupiter in the opposite direction.

And it says there after it was transformed into a group of 60 deities, which of course we know it as a 60HRZ. Here it says ancient Chinese astronomy astrology and fortune tellers used the Chinese calendar that was calculated using 10 heavenly stems and 12 earthly branches. And of course I'd like to just mention it combined to produce the 60 year cycles or what is called the sex agenarian cycle. So I mentioned that there's something called 10 heavenly stems. So what are the 10 heavenly stems?

The 10 heavenly stems is just the five elements in that ginn and young polarity. So it's actually 10 different I guess it would be 10 different elements. You know it's like Yin Wood and Yang Wood, Yin Earth and Yang Earth. So that's kind of how that cycle goes. So again with Western astrology there's a concept of virtual planets which again I'm not too familiar with.

And I'm just learning about Chinese astrology. You know I've only been studying it a few years so obviously I don't know everything is you know opposed to somebody who's been studying the 20 years plus right. But here again from this Tao sorcery it says that Jupiter revolves around the Sun every 11.86 earth years. And this is how the 12 earthly branches came into play in the subject of divination. The celestial spheres were divided into 12 sections each representing two hours of the day.

Jupiter moves in each of those 12 sections yearly which forms a 12 astrological signs. Since Jupiter's period is 11.86 years and the celestial sphere consists of 12 sections it doesn't synchronize or give accurate interpretation of astrological signs. After a long period the error will be noticeable and that is how the concept of the Thai sloi came about. The Thai sloi or this is the year star also the Grand Duke is an intangible or imaginary star that was created to correct the error between the 12 branches in the day. So it says here it revolves around the celestial sphere in exactly 12 earth years with the introduction of the Thai sloi the astrological signs can then be interpreted with consistency.

And I'm thankful for that. Later on 60 honorable generals were hypothesized as Thai sloi to assist the Jade Emperor in taking charge of the well-being of the mortal world. Each one of them takes turns to be in charge for one year so the 60 generals match the 60 years of this sex agenarian cycle. In the whole 60 year cycle of the Chinese lunar calendar there are exactly 60 Thai slois. One Thai sloi is in charge of one particular year of those 60 years.

Out of those 60 Thai slois there is an overall in charge of all the Thai slois and his name is Yin Zhao. It says here he is the son of the evil king Zhu from the Shang Dynasty. It also says he has three heads and six arms and due to his fierce looking face nowadays he has given the image of a little boy holding a banner and it has some symbolism or some names written on it. So much like the Tang Qi Chinese Almanac each of the generals in each depiction of one of these 60 generals is supposed to represent a prediction for that year. And I had a really hard time finding what each of the Thai sloi meant.

They're all holding different things. They'll have their hands in different mudras. Maybe one of them is holding a spear, one is holding a pin, one is holding a sword. And they all mean something different. And again this might be just information.

There's a lot of information in Feng Shui and Chinese metaphysics that's only available written in Chinese. And if you don't read Chinese you're kind of at a loss for what some things are. So I wasn't able to find a lot of information. And I reached out to some Feng Shui friends and they don't know either. So this is the best I could find.

So on Wikipedia it states here that the 12 or sorry the same thing. So I'm sorry the 60 generals here says each of the gods of features and attributes signify the well being for that year. So for example if the Thai sloi holds a pin it signifies political unrest for that particular year. On the other hand of the Thai sloi holds a spear or sword it signifies the need to work hard and excel for that year. And I will say I do know that the Thai sloi for this year or the representation of it you'll be able to see I'm going to put a I linked the Wikipedia pictures because there's all 60 of them and they're pretty cool looking.

The one for this year is holding a pin and I know in the US of course we've had a lot of the politics have been crazy this year. And so I will say that that prediction is actually true. It is said that you can put out these Thai sloi one of the statues that represents for that year. You're supposed to be able to set that out into you know kind of give some honor to it to help protect you for the year. Another thing you can do it says here is to you know have a big budget you can just pray to the Thai sloi you can go to the temple at the beginning of the lunar new year and you can offer a prayer and ask for a protection for the year.

If you are worried and you've happened to have a rough year some people that could be affected by the Thai sloi for the year actually it is based on your animal sign and if you have a goat or sheep in your natal chart. It is one of the signs that can be affected because it opposes the Thai sloi. It's just a cross from it in within the direction so it's that Southwest so it opposes you know the Northeast. But it is said you can also if you have a higher budget you can get a Thai sloi talisman created and of course that talisman is sure they offer to do that for you. So if you are interested in that I'll put a link down there below.

And those are some of the ways and some of the beliefs about the Thai sloi. To support the podcast be sure to subscribe, leave a review and share with your family and friends who you think may be interested. Especially if you found this content useful. To learn more about Feng Shui and Chinese metaphysics follow the link to the website below.