Guanyin fortune stick
18
Upper stick
The golden crow sinks in the west and the rabbit rises in the east;
day and night have circled so from ancient times to now.
Monks and priests who grasp this find nothing goes against them,
and scholars, farmers, workers and merchants each get their wish.
jadealmanac.com
The Eight Immortals reappear behind this stick in the person of Cao Guojiu, the Imperial Uncle Cao. Brother of a Song empress, he was shamed by a younger brother who broke the law and killed with impunity. Cao gave his fortune away to the poor, left court for the mountains, and there met Zhongli Quan and Lü Dongbin, who guided him until he joined their company as an immortal. The poem's sun and moon trading places at dusk carry the same idea: an orderly turn from one state of life to another. Someone who knows when to set down rank and wealth, the story implies, meets nothing unfavorable, and so the stick ranks upper.
The golden crow is the three-legged bird of the sun, and the rabbit lives in the moon. One sets in the west as the other rises in the east, a single moment of handover.
Day and night circling from antiquity to now is the oldest regular pattern there is. Temple readers take it as reassurance that the matter follows a natural order rather than chance.
Monks and Daoist priests are named first because their lives are built around these cycles. Anyone who understands timing as they do, the reading goes, meets nothing unfavorable.
Scholars, farmers, artisans and merchants were the four classes of traditional society, which is to say everyone. Each getting what they want makes this one of the broadest blessings in the set.
金乌西坠兔东升
日夜循环至古今
僧道得知无不利
士农工商各从心
Seven characters a line, as printed in the BW Monastery edition.
Sources for the story: https://www.k366.com/guanyin/28876.htm; https://services.shen88.cn/chouqian/guanyin-18.html; https://www.masterseanchan.com/guanyin-oracle/lot-18/; https://www.fatekeep.com/blog/3640.
Optional: the temple way
At a temple the stick is not yours until two moon blocks agree: one flat side up and one round side up, a holy cup.
Stick 18, "Yin and Yang Wax and Wane", is a upper stick, a favorable stick. With nothing weighing on your heart, your work bears fruit, like an arrow on the bow, loosed once into open sky.
The two of you are in harmony.
Smooth investments; business succeeds.
Smooth going; study shows results.
Draw another stick , or for a straight yes or no, throw the moon blocks
The verse follows the BW Monastery edition of the Guanyin set; the English rendering and reading are Jade Almanac's own. A drawn stick is a tradition and a prompt for reflection, not advice about health, money or the law.
