ancestor talk
the past month, been kind of obsessively researching an ancestor on my father’s side of the family named Lee Jiham (이지함) who wrote an astrology book that is still used to this day by diviners called ToJungBiKyul (토정비결), or ToJung’s Secrets. many of these modern diviners do their work in northern seoul after a history of displacement by development projects; many of them are women and narrate their disabilities/body stories as divining a call to this lineage of work. he was most famous for prophesying the first invasion by the japanese in 1592. he seemed to be a humble, eccentric guy who dipped his toe in everything out of curiosity. he was a respected scholar, and later was asked to become governor of pocheon. unsurprisingly, he didn’t last very long in politics and resigned his position after being defeated twice in his ‘radical’ idea for essentially mid-16th c. social welfare projects for the people. his pen name ToJung, refers to a red clay hut he dug out by the river; and people started calling him that, which he liked. there is no english translation of this text, and i’ve been looking for a copy in the states, but may have to order overseas. the snippets i’ve read in korean are essentially lines of poetry that you’re led to after an algorithm of complex calculations. more and more questions bubble. around craft. the divination and chaos that structure, whether in meter or calculation, can provide? around bodies. around red clay. around stars.