The Center

Every 24 hours, the Dipper makes a full turn around the Northpole. A huge clockhand, sometimes visible at dawn, sometimes at dusk, sometimes the entire night.

Everything in heaven turns around a center. All stars, the sun, the moon, they are like the spokes of a wheel, rotating around the axis of the world.

"Thirty spokes join at a single hub,
But it is precisely where there is nothing
That the utility of the wheel resides.
......
Therefore,
Having a thing is beneficial,
But having nothing is useful."

The master said: "To conduct government by virtue may be compared to the Northern Asterism: it occupies its place, while the myriad stars revolve around it".

Confucius compared the 'de' (virtue) of the sage ruler to the Pole.
The 'Supreme One' is identified throughout China's history with the celestial Pole.

In the Warring States Guodian manuscripts from Chu, in the text "The Supreme One Springs From Water", Taiyi sheng shui: "Supreme One [Taiyi] is here an alternative appellation for the Dao... ". Taiyi in these texts is what is referred to as the Dao in the pre-Chin period.

The Supreme One dwells in the center, which is also the position of the Son of Heaven. There is a parallel between the position of the ruler among the people and that of the Supreme One among the heavenly bodies.
(Pankenier page 88-89)

Finding the center of the heavens in 3000 BCE.
The Big Dipper (bottom) is Ursa Major, the Little Dipper (Little Bear, top) is Ursa Minor

The character dì: Supreme One; emperor. The one who represents the center of the heavens on earth. At left an old version of the character.

In the time of the Shang there was no star in the center of the rotating heavens. The spot could be found by connecting other stars, and where the lines intersected, was the exact center of the rotation. The character dì seems to be an image of a tool which might have been used for this - and then became the emblem of the emperor. (Pankenier p.103)

Liji: "Now the rites necessarily have their origin in the Supreme One, which divides to become Heaven and Earth, revolves to become yin and yang, and changes to become the four seasons".

Get Pankenier's book! It is incredible, I am only scratching the surface.

The image shows a person, holding a carpenter's square in his hand.
From Richard Sears: 矩 from person 矢大 holding a 巨工 carpenters square. Meaning carpenters square.
This square is part of the instrument used for finding the center of heaven, the northpole.

Di is the regulator of the time. He governs the law of Heaven, which is also the subject of hexagram 1. The celestial dragon is the clockhand of Heaven's watch, indicating the rise and decline of the light and of the seasons.

The supreme god is the center. Long ago there was a bright star at the northpole but precession moved true north to another point, where 'nothing' is.
"The form of the supreme one is emptiness" <Lie Yukow>.

Dao: attunement with the timeless pattern of the cosmos.

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