Guan Di lot 25 of 100
Dry wood in spring
Middling (中平, 丙戊). Grades differ between editions, and many Taiwanese temples print none. Shown as Wikisource gives it. Wikisource prints no stem pair for this lot, so 丙戊 is from manekineko.com.tw.
寅午戍年多阻滯
亥子丑月漸亨嘉
更逢玉兔金雞會
枯木逢春自放花
In the years of tiger, horse and dog, there are many blocks.
In the months of pig, rat and ox, things gradually go well.
When the jade hare meets the golden rooster,
dry wood meets the spring and flowers by itself.
What this lot says
This is a lot about timing. The verse uses the Chinese year and month cycles, and says that a hard run ends and a good one begins.
Its picture, dry wood blossoming, suits a person who has felt used up. Read it as a sign that a long dry spell can end without a lot of forcing.
A lot is a prompt for reflection. It cannot promise a result, and it is no substitute for medical, legal or financial advice.
The story behind it
Emperor Xuanzong visits the Moon Palace (唐明皇遊月宮)
According to the account on Wikisource, on the fifteenth night of the eighth month, the magician with the Tang emperor Xuanzong threw a staff into the sky, and it became a silver-coloured bridge on which they crossed to the Moon Palace. There the emperor watched women singing and memorised the music, then taught it to Lady Yang.
Source: Wikisource, 關聖帝君靈籤/25, the 故事及記載 section
Where this text comes from
This verse is a traditional temple text with no known author. We read it from two named web transcriptions, Chinese Wikisource (the base text) and manekineko.com.tw. Neither is a scan of a printing, the edition behind them is mixed, and we could not establish whether the two are independent of each other.
Wikisource (關聖帝君靈籤) (the text shown above)
寅午戍年多阻滯 / 亥子丑月漸亨嘉 / 更逢玉兔金雞會 / 枯木逢春自放花
Retrieved 2026-11-09. Transcription licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
manekineko.com.tw (富貴轉運站)
寅午戍年多阻滯 / 亥子丑月漸亨嘉 / 更逢玉兔金雞會 / 枯木逢春自放花
Retrieved 2026-11-09
Where the sources differ
- Line 3: a note in Wikisource's transcription gives 待 for 更, apparently a variant reading.
English translation, meaning and story summaries are by Cast & Chart.