Don’t Know Your Birth Hour? Cast a Hexagram to Find It’s the Noon Hour (11 a.m.–1 p.m.)

What do you do if you don’t know what time you were born? Most people who come asking this question don’t actually have no clues at all—they just have the evidence right in front of them and dare not acknowledge it. This old case of Hexagram Reading via Plum Blossom Numerology starts with a red invitation card with the birth hour left blank.

The first rain after the Start of Autumn had just stopped when Chen Yao stepped into the alley, clutching a red invitation card.

The year, month, and day on the card were written neatly, but the column for the birth hour at the end was left blank. Marriage matching requires Birth Details (Eight Characters), but his mother only remembered he was born "around midday." The midwife had passed away a few years prior, so there was no one to confirm it; the bride’s family demanded an exact answer, and the matchmaker pressed him three times a day, her words growing more and more unpleasant. The fortune-teller at the street corner said this sort of thing couldn’t be clarified, advised him to accept the Mao Hour (5–7 a.m.) as his birth time, and even urged him to scrape together money to hire a master from out of town to retroactively calculate the hour based on the year and month.

The master, as usual, didn’t say much. He cast a hexagram based on the exact hour when Chen Yao came to ask the question.

"The Original Hexagram is The Marrying Maiden (雷泽归妹), with the Six at the Top as the Changing Line." The master stared at the hexagram tray and recited half a line, "‘The maiden carries a basket with no contents—’"

His cousin, who had come with him, went pale first and tugged at his sleeve: "The basket— the basket is empty? Does that mean my cousin… has no origin?"

"What’s there to panic about?" The master tapped the hexagram with his chopsticks. "The basket having nothing in it refers to you having no tangible proof in hand, not that you have no origin. Your mother remembers it was around midday, but words alone are no proof; the red card has a blank space—that’s what the empty basket means. But whether the thing is actually outside the basket, let’s look further."

He pointed at the Changing Line: "Above The Marrying Maiden is Zhen (Thunder). What is Zhen? The first thunder at the edge of the sky at dawn, when the sun has just peeked out—this corresponds to the Mao Hour. This line is a Changing Line: the Yin Line flips into a Yang Line, and Zhen transforms into Li (Fire). What is Li? The sun. The sun climbs from dawn to high noon, and the shadow shrinks to beneath one’s feet. The very first time a person meets this world upon being born, they see the hour when the sun is at its strongest. You asked if you were born in the Noon Hour (11 a.m.–1 p.m., the Hour of the Horse)—the hexagram says that when you were born, the sun was directly overhead."

"Then what about the Mao Hour?" his cousin pressed.

"Right now it’s the Shen Month, the autumn month after the Start of Autumn, and Metal is prosperous." The master spoke crisply. "Zhen belongs to Wood, and Wood is Dead in autumn. That claim about dawn doesn’t hold up."

Chen Yao’s throat felt tight. "But some elders in the family also say it was early morning…"

"Different people have different opinions, and that’s also written in the hexagram." The master flipped to the Nuclear Hexagram. "Look, there’s a hidden hexagram inside: After Completion (水火既济). Water above Fire—this is the posture of cooking rice, everything in its proper place. The matter of your birth hour has long been settled; it’s not an unsolved case, just that no one has uncovered it. Now look at the Changed Hexagram: Opposition (火泽睽). Kui (Opposition) means differing opinions, but the Hexagram Judgment is clear: Good fortune in small matters. Verifying a birth hour is a trivial matter—Good Fortune, it can be settled. All these days of suspicion and unease will turn out to be a false alarm in the end; the cloud of doubt will disperse on its own."

"Then—then I’ll go scrape together money right now and hire a few more masters to calculate it again?"

"Don’t spend a single copper." The master laid his chopsticks horizontally to stop him. "With this hexagram The Marrying Maiden, running around outside will do no good. The answer isn’t out there—it’s in your own home. Li (Fire) corresponds to documents and to eyesight—go back and dig out the old account book your mother kept when she was in confinement after giving birth to you. You’ll see it at a glance yourself."

Half believing and half doubting, Chen Yao went home.

His mother was airing old things in the yard. When she heard he wanted the account book, she pulled a blue cloth bundle from the bottom of a chest. Three booklets made of rough-edged paper, all filled with trivial records from back then: how many coppers for eggs, how many catties of brown sugar. He flipped through page by page; the paper was so brittle it crumbled, and dust got on his fingertips. When he turned to the page about his own birth, most of the ink had faded, but one line was still perfectly clear—

"Born when the sun was directly overhead."

His mother leaned over to look and slapped her thigh: "Yes, yes, yes! You were born right when the sun was at its hottest! I remembered correctly!"

Later, he reported back: when the red card was delivered to the bride’s family, the marriage-matching master nodded repeatedly at the line in the account book—born when the sun was directly overhead, that’s the Noon Hour. The blank space was filled neatly with the character "Wu (Noon)". A matter that had hung in the balance for days was settled just like that.

Chen Yao brought two packs of pastries to thank the master. The master didn’t accept them, only saying: "The hexagram already pointed the sun out to you. You just didn’t dare believe it."

This is one of the cases in the hexagram records. What do you do if you don’t know what time you were born? How to determine your birth hour—the hexagram gives the direction, and old documents and elders confirm it; the answer of being born in the Noon Hour has most likely been in your own home all along.