Guan Yin lot 28 of 100
Clouds over the moon
Favourable (中吉). Grade from lot 28 of the related Goodfate edition, whose verse is worded quite differently, so it is not compared line by line below. Grades differ between temples, and many Taiwanese temples print none.
東方月上正蟬娟
頃刻雲遮月半邊
莫道圓時還又缺
須教缺處復重圓
The moon climbs in the east, lovely and bright.
In a moment cloud covers half its face.
Do not say what is round must wane again.
See that the broken part is made round once more.
What this lot says
A bright moon loses half its face to cloud within moments. The verse uses this to talk about things that were whole and have been damaged, and it refuses the gloomy conclusion that every good thing must fall apart.
Its last line is an instruction: see that the broken part is mended. The repair is left to you.
If a friendship, marriage or working partnership has taken a recent knock, treat the damage as partial. Half the moon is still showing. Start with one honest conversation about the part that went wrong, and leave the rest of the relationship out of the argument.
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
Lord Bao finds Consort Li (包公尋李后)
In a folk tale, Consort Li's newborn was swapped for a skinned civet cat and she was cast out, until the judge Bao Zheng found her years later and restored her to honor as the mother of Emperor Renzong. The legend suits a lot about what was broken being made whole.
Source: Chinese Wikipedia, 狸貓換太子
Where this text comes from
This verse is a traditional temple text with no known author. No single original edition is known and wording differs between temples, so we compare named witnesses and record where they differ.
Míguāng (覓光) (the text shown above)
東方月上正蟬娟 / 頃刻雲遮月半邊 / 莫道圓時還又缺 / 須教缺處復重圓
Retrieved 2026-11-08
Jiěqiān Gé (解籤閣)
東方月上正嬋娟 / 頃刻雲遮月半邊 / 莫道圓時還又缺 / 須教缺處復重圓
Retrieved 2026-11-08
Where the sources differ
- Line 1 reads 東方月上正蟬娟 in Míguāng and 東方月上正嬋娟 in Jiěqiān Gé.
- The related Goodfate edition has a substantially different verse for this lot.
English translation and commentary are by Cast & Chart.