"The Wax & Wane of Stars" - Thousand Character Classic 千字文 – Line 2

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日月盈昃, 辰宿列张。
rìyuè yíng zè, chén xiù liè zhāng。

日 (sun) 月 (moon) 盈 (wax) 昃 (set)

This refers to the cycle of the universe as in the waxing and waning of the moon, and the rising and setting of the sun. 日月 itself also means life and livelihood and thus this also refers to the cycle of Life itself.

辰 (stars) 宿 (constellations) 列 (arrange) 张 (spread)

辰 means celestial bodies and also time, period. It is the fifth of the 12 Earthly branches which represents a 2 hours period. 宿 is commonly pronounced as sù in modern Chinese but in this context it is xiù as used in ancient time. It is the character for the Chinese constellations, 28 of them in ancient Chinese astronomy. This implies that time and the universe is constantly changing.

(To elaborate on the Chinese marking of the hours of the day, I quoted the following from Wikipedia – “Under the traditional system of hour-marking, each day is divided into 12 units (時辰). Each of these units is equivalent to two hours of international time. Each is named after one of the twelve Earthly Branches. The first unit, Hour of Zi (子時), begins at 11 p.m. of the previous day and ends at 1 a.m. Traditionally, executions of condemned prisoners occur at the midpoint of Hour of Wu (正午時), i.e., noon.”)

(For the meaning of Earthly Branches, I quoted another section from Wikipedia - The Earthly Branches (Chinese: 地支; pinyin: dìzhī; or Chinese: 十二支; pinyin: shíèrzhī; literally "twelve branches") provide one Chinese system for reckoning time.

This system was built from observations of the orbit of Jupiter. Chinese astronomers divided the celestial circle into 12 sections to follow the orbit of 歳星 Suìxīng (Jupiter, the Year Star). Astronomers rounded the orbit of Suixing to 12 years (from 11.86). Suixing was associated with 攝提 Shètí (ɳ Boötes) and sometimes called Sheti.

In correlative thinking, the twelve years of the Jupiter cycle also identify the twelve months of the year, twelve animals (mnemonics for the system), directions, seasons, months, and Chinese hour in the form of double-hours. When a Branch is used for a double hour, the listed periods are meant. When used for an exact time of a day, it is the center of the period. For instance, 午 (the Horse) means noon or a period from 11am to 1pm.)

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