Ox 2013
Who is an Ox?
Years: 1949, 1961, 1973, 1985, 1997, 2009.
Month*: January
Hour: 01:00 am -03:00 am
Day: ask us
* Caution: the start of the Chinese month can be as early as the 4th & as late as the 9th, depending on the year. I can let you know this too.
What is an Ox?
The distinctive quality of the Ox is insistence, not persistence, because the Ox’s yin Earth makes for a certain fragility, more of a curtain than a rampart. The Ox is in many ways, the most sensitive year animal. This is often expressed in what looks like obstinacy but is better understood as puzzlement at being disagreed with. In discourse you may find that an Ox has firm principles that on examination are not principles at all but more like prejudices or assumptions. They are often nonetheless firm as well as correct for all that. As a rule, don’t expect flexibility of mind from an Ox; they know what they know and are often not keen to venture beyond.
The Ox’s gifts are very often practical rather than intellectual. The intellectually gifted Ox is extraordinarily powerful. Because of her position between the Rat and the Tiger, the Ox can sometimes vacillate between a fierceness that does not suit her and a Rat-like charm that she may not be able to sustain.
With her allies the Snake and the Rooster, she forms a team which is of the metal element. That is to say that the alliance is linear, judgemental and competitive. Where the ground rules are clear, this is an unstoppable combination. These three make a great legal team with the Rooster charming the jury, the Snake unearthing information that no one else could find and the Ox sticking to the point. When the rules are unclear however, the metal alliance can falter. Then the Ox can become judgemental in a more covert sort of way, being less liable to argue than to judge silently. Without the Snake and the Rooster, the Ox is more barrack room lawyer than barrister.
Working in such a team, the metal, that is the qualities of logic, reason and competition, is less important than consistency. In dealing with the Ox, it is important to remember not only that the metal is there but also that the Ox may deny this fact even to herself.
The hour of the Ox (1am-3am) is the time that the worlds of spirit and flesh are closest. She has a deep spiritual agenda. The gifts of mediumship and divination are essentially Ox gifts.
The Ox may be attached to ancestral dogma. Fundamentalism of all sorts – political and social as well as religious – is a common trait. She is not always good at questioning tradition or second-hand wisdom that has come down on good authority. She will often quote great men not because their words are wise but because they are great.
With the Dragon, Dog and Sheep, the Ox forms the Literary Alliance. Some call this confluence the Four Earths and think of it as negative. The fact is that it is a demanding combination. If the Dragon is missing for instance, many think of it as poisonous but to see this as an assembly of the vehicles of expression without anything new to say is probably more like it. The coincidence of these animals is a challenge to a strong ba zi and can be the ruin of a weak one.
Barack Obama may currently be the world’s most famous Ox and a good example. He actually has a Sheep in his month pillar. This makes for a home-loving and secure man. This is heightened by his day stem (the character that rules the day he was born) which has a special affinity both with the Ox and the Sheep. This like so many Oxen, is a man who loves his babies.
The challenge to Obama in 2013 is to make up for the Dog missing from his ba zi. He has been given a further mandate but many Americans are concerned as to whether his legacy will amount to more than a series of moving speeches. The Dog stands for completion. Obama must see the job through. If you were to study the prevailing Elements of the 4th February (or lap chun) 2013 when the Chinese Solar year starts, you’ll see that while the Year Pillar of 2013 is also that of Xi Jinping, the Day Pillar which drives a ba zi is Metal Ox, like Obama. My money is on him going out with a major lasting bequest.
The Ox has a love-hate relationship with the irritatingly spontaneous and extrovert Horse to whom she can not help nonetheless being drawn. Nor is she that keen on the Rabbit who can help herself to the Ox’s fresh vegetables or the Tiger who somehow often manages to exploit her.
Ox 2013:
Stars include: Three Pillar Golden Box, Tian Xiong Glib, Fei Lian Mishap.
Last year offered you all sorts of personal satisfaction. If you grasped that nettle, this piece will read differently than if you didn’t.
One Chinese Master parsed this year for you as: “Baffling accusations follow inappropriate behaviour.” Which may not sound like something to look forward to.
Two steps forward, one back, has often been your favourite dance, not because you don’t stick at things but because you stick with them beyond their sell-by date. This year the Snake’s Fire gives you confidence but probably not authority; you express yourself at a cost. Because of this, the straight track you need to run on will be there for you but you are also afflicted with poor stars. Relax: they’re here to teach you lessons from which you will gain enormously.
Here’s a clue: however powerless you feel, you’re in charge. It’s your life, so how could it be otherwise? This year you make your mark, to a great extent against the odds.
Last year, the Dragon brought you the possibility of a comforting and completing re-acquaintance. This year the predominance of the (especially Wooden) Horse brings you passion; less cosy, not always a jumper you wear easily. It’s likely and appropriate that (probably like you) any suitor who appears is in need of a shove. The Ox has principles that aren’t principles. You tend to stick to odd fixed ideas way past their sell-by date. It’s as if you’re trying to please someone who isn’t paying attention: for the Ox very often that’s a parent who didn’t possess the resources to pay that kind of attention for long and may have passed on anyway. The idea is that if we know these things about ourselves we can stop being run by them.
For “suitor” male Oxen should read “challenger”. Why would you encourage challenge? Because the Ox, in addition to being the eminence grise and the most sensitive of the Animals, is often the most complaisant. Last year presented you with a richness of opportunities which you appear to have thought were meant for someone else. They were for you and they’re mostly still there.
Typically there remain older trailing edges: in 2008/9 you were offered a major change, a real break in the clouds. Most of your troubles today stem from not wholly accepting that. You seem to have thought that your life was under someone else’s control. It’s a common misappraisal for you, usually coming in your own year. For indications of where it will go and what to do with it, consider 1997, 1985 and if you can remember that far back, 1973. You opted out of something which will not let go of you. Hint: you’re the one with the vicelike grip.
This year the Ox has to get used to the Fire of the Snake hardening your attitudes while its Metal draws on your resources. You pull it off best in September probably. But you are favoured. It will work out. There’s so much to play for.
Health: possibly teeth or gum trouble but none of your typical blockages.
Money: more out than in but usefully deployed.
Relationship: back-pedalling to do but if you’re settled you’ll be more so by 2014.
Feng Shui: activate geng at W1 (next to the Rooster) for windfall.
Readers’ Digest Version: wake up; the opportunity you funked last year is still open. Broadly relationship for men, other forms of progress for women.
Richard Ashworth©2012