Brass White Copper Ziwei Talisman Ring

You will not find this character in a dictionary. The Ziwei taboo character was invented. A rain radical is pressed on top, a few strokes are stacked underneath, and the result is a character with no pronunciation at all, commonly written in Daoist talismans. Its function is to stand in for the name of a deity: write the character and you have invoked the name of the Ziwei Emperor. Cut onto a ring, the character has to travel around the curved face, spread out it is long and closed up it becomes the character again, so the die has to be calculated to the arc.

Ziwei is the region of sky around the pole star. The old astronomers divided the heavens into three enclosures and twenty-eight mansions, with the Ziwei enclosure at the center, the pole star as its pivot, the dwelling place of the celestial emperor and the counterpart of the imperial palace below. They set the calendar by the stars and read the fortunes of a court by them as well. The Ziwei Emperor is one of the Four Sovereigns, governing the stars and the warp and weft of heaven. The character is widely used in folk practice and turns up on door lintels and on cabinets. The star officers of the Ziwei enclosure carry strange names, celestial bed, celestial kitchen, celestial spear, as though the furniture of the human world had been carried up into the sky.

Brass and white copper. A ring can be made open or closed: a closed one has to be sized, while an open one springs a little and will fit even a size off. A copper ring is lighter than silver and does not weigh on the hand, and the drawback is softness, since a hard squeeze deforms it. Do not spring an open one often either, because copper fatigues quickly and a few bends will break it. When measuring a finger, measure the knuckle rather than the base, since the ring only goes on if the knuckle passes through.

The band is wide and the character is cut on the front. A wide band makes the hand look smaller, and short fingers do better with a narrower one. In summer the sweat reacts with the copper and the base of the finger may go green, which is a copper salt and washes off. Thick knuckles catch on a wide band as it goes over, so an open band saves trouble. Do not wear a wide band on the same hand as a watch, or two metals knock together all day. The inside of the band has to be polished; an unpolished inside drags every time the ring turns.

A ring goes on every day and wears faster than a pendant. Once the cuts go shallow there is no bringing them back, and the next purchase is the only repair. Take it off for work and for lifting, since most copper deformation starts exactly there. Over time copper polishes into a bright band along the edges, which is burnishing and not loss of color. When it comes off, dry it and put it in a box; copper fears damp, and damp brings out green spots. The green at the base of the finger rubs away with two passes of soap, and there is no need to buy a silver dip for it.