In Chinese Astrology, Ox is the Representative Animal for 2009
For many centuries constellations and Chinese astrology have been used for divination purposes. Over 3000 years ago the “10 Heavenly Stems” and “12 Earthly Branches” were invented for chronological reasons. They were used to differentiate time and seasons.
Later on in time, as so many Chinese people were illiterate animals became used by people to represent the 12 Earthly Branches, these are used today, and in order are: mouse, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, rooster, dog and pig, in Chinese astrology, Ox is representative of 2009.
Legend tells that Buddha was celebrating Chinese New Year and he invited all animals to partake of the festivities. Unfortunately only these 12 animals arrive. In honor of them he named the years after them. There are other variations of this story, but for the purposes of this information we shall use this one. People who are born in the year of the animal it is represented by are supposed to have some traits of these animals inherent in them.
As well as the animal cycles we find element cycles. The five elements are wood, fire, earth, metal (gold) and water, each element is represented by color with fire being red, earth, brown, wood, green, water black and metal, white (although the metal element is supposedly gold). These are placed at the top of each animal and the sign would read, “wood rooster”, or “metal dragon”.
These elements are enlarged into a cycle of ten and combined with the binary “Yin and Yang” cycle. Odd years being Yin and even being Yang! As there are 12 animal zodiac signs which is divisible by two, each zodiac animal is only able to appear in either a Yin or Yang year. For instance the dragon is always yang, while the snake is Yin. The combination of the zodiac animals, colors and elements makes for a 60 year cycle which starts with “Wood Rat” and ends with “Water Pig”. We are currently in a cycle which commenced in 1984.
In Chinese astrology, ox, is very similar in nature to Rat and it is the second zodiac sign. The year of the ox signifies steady building or slow, sure action. There are long term implications to the decisions you make in the year of the Ox, so good choices need to be made. Unfortunately 2009 is an earth Ox year and water is the ruling element of Ox. This creates a conflict, and in fact of the last six Chinese years four have had conflicting element signs, this tends to be destructive and Chinese astrologers believe this is why the earth has undergone so much upheaval in the last 6 years.
The New, 13th Zodiac Sign: Ophiuchus!
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