Arcanes

The Chinese horoscope · the twelve animals·2nd of twelve

The Ox

牛niú

  • Branch 丑 · chǒu
  • Fixed element: Earth
  • yin
  • Hour: 1:00 to 3:00
  • Direction: NNE

In a word

Patient, solid, reliable to the end.

What tradition attributes to it

  • They move at their own pace and finish what they start.
  • You can count on them: their word is worth a contract.
  • They like the concrete, hands in the soil, work you can see.
  • Calm on the surface, with a strength people underestimate.
  • They don’t talk for nothing; when they say it, they mean it.

The other side

  • Stubbornness: once they have decided, they stop listening.
  • They show little, and people assume they feel little.
  • When the anger finally comes out, late, it comes out whole.

In love

Slow to open up, lasting once open. They show their attachment by what they do rather than what they say; you need to know that, or you will find them cold.

At work

Built for what takes staying power: building, growing things, managing, holding a post over years. Constant changes of direction wear them down more than the workload does.

What helps

Say one thing you feel out loud today, to someone who matters. One sentence is enough: nobody is going to guess it for you.

By the element of the year

  • Wood Ox: more open, more flexible, willing to take other people’s advice.
  • Fire Ox: more fiery and more commanding, pushing hard, themselves and everyone else.
  • Earth Ox: the most patient and the most faithful, with no detours.
  • Metal Ox: the hardest, blunt, demanding, and unbending.
  • Water Ox: more diplomatic, more attentive, going around the obstacle rather than pushing it.

The Year of the Fire Horse

This year for the Ox

Between the animal of the year and its own, tradition names nothing in particular: no triangle, no opposition, no secret friendship. An ordinary year, where the element counts for more.

The element of the year feeds its own (Wood feeds Fire, Fire makes Earth): a year that carries rather than takes.

Chinese tradition reads the year by comparing this animal with the year's animal, then their two elements. It describes a mood, not events.

The years of the Ox

  1. January 24, 1925 → February 12, 1926Wood Ox乙丑
  2. February 11, 1937 → January 30, 1938Fire Ox丁丑
  3. January 29, 1949 → February 16, 1950Earth Ox己丑
  4. February 15, 1961 → February 4, 1962Metal Ox辛丑
  5. February 3, 1973 → January 22, 1974Water Ox癸丑
  6. February 20, 1985 → February 8, 1986Wood Ox乙丑
  7. February 7, 1997 → January 27, 1998Fire Ox丁丑
  8. January 26, 2009 → February 13, 2010Earth Ox己丑
  9. February 12, 2021 → January 31, 2022Metal Ox辛丑
  10. January 31, 2033 → February 18, 2034Water Ox癸丑

From Chinese New Year to the last day of the Chinese year. If your birthday falls in January or early February, your animal is often the one from the year before: check your birth date in the list.

With the others

  • Its affinity triangle: the Snake and the Rooster. Three animals four years apart, who understand one another without effort, says tradition.
  • Its secret friend: the Rat. The quiet pair, the one that gets along without showing it.
  • Its opposite: the Goat, six years apart, directly across on the wheel of the twelve animals. Not a ban: a difference in pace, one you can learn to work with.

Traditional affinities, not verdicts. Two people are two whole charts, not two birth years.

And you?

Your sign is based on the actual date of Chinese New Year, and your birth time gives your animal of the hour.

See my sign