According to a an old text, it has been said that there were 13 days which Master Yang JunSong (Tang Dynasty 618-907) would not step out of his door.
These days are based on the Chinese Lunar calendars and thus the Roman calendar equivalent would vary from year to year. They are :
Month one 13th
Month two 11th
Month three 9th
Month four 7th
Month five 5th
Month sixth 3rd
Month seven 1st and 29th
Month eight 27th
Month nine 25th
Month ten 23rd
Month eleven 21st
Month twelve 29th
The seven line stanza will frighten the hell out of you. Any enterprise that is undertaken will be disastrous. Any project that is initiated will suffer fire loss, robbery or death.
Marriages will not last. Those who travel will return empty handed or worse. Burial on these days will make paupers out of the children. Legal recourse will fail and incur punishment.
The validity of the stanza is suspect as there is no rationale at all. Date selection is a refined science and the basis is astrological along with a complex and varied analysis of the stem and branches theory.
The only value of talking the existence of this 13 evil days is to emphasize that as an applied science, feng shui or astrology has to be based on reasoned objectivity. Superstitions and other similar transgressions have to be weeded out.
In the old days, quacks are plenty and the only protection from them is to ignore them completely. This smart approach is valid today too. It would be sad if after all that much more that we know about our world and ourselves, we still make simple mistakes.
