The Ox in the Year of the Wood Dragon 2024

Ox Pic by @elliespinelli

Who is an Ox?

Years:         1949, 1961, 1973, 1985, 1997, 2009, 2021.
Month*:      January
Hour:          01.00-03.00am

Day: you’ll need a Chinese Calendar.

* Caution: the start of the Chinese month can be as early as the 4th & as late as the 9th, depending on the year. We 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 Zodiac 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 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. Never forget however, how sensitive they are.

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 from a fierceness – that does not really suit her – to a Rat-like charm that she may not be able to sustain. Watch out for the Ox who you seem on first acquaintance to have known all your life but then becomes uncontactable. In certain contexts this is called “ghosting”

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, not when they’re not. But 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, 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 (01-03.00) is when the worlds of spirit and flesh are closest. Often she has a deep spiritual agenda. The gifts of mediumship and divination are essentially Ox gifts. He is above all extraordinarily sensitive.

He may nonetheless be attached to ancestral dogma. Fundamentalism of all sorts – political and social as well as religious – is a common trait. Ox is not always good at questioning tradition or second-hand wisdom that has come down on good authority. So she will often quote great men not because their words are wise but because they are great. Bob Dylan’s advice “Don’t follow leaders and watch your parking meters” goes over the head of the immature Ox but is the credo of the life-wisened one.

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 from it, for instance, many think of the alliance 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 four animals in time or space, known as the Earth Curse, is a challenge to a strong ba zi and can be the ruin of a weak one. As it consists of Dog, Sheep and Ox, expect it to occur in January, July and October of any Earth year like this one.

Ox often stands also for fertility, insome cases infertility but bith in an Ox Day or Hour implies this as an ongoing issue.

The challenge to the Ox in the 21^st Century is to topple the toxic Fire Dog. Three of the last four American Presidents (Clinton, W. Bush, Trump) have been Fire Dogs born 1946. The Fire Dog is long past his peak; it’s time to make way. The current chaotic world order may represent this shift of power. Ironically perhaps these Fire Dogs represent the established order of things.

Actually Fire Dogs btw may be best suited to light entertainment as David Gilmour, Roy Wood and John Prine among many others, demonstrate. It may be that the above presidents took an important wrong turn.

Barack Obama may be the world’s most famous Ox and a good example though 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 an unusual affinity both with the Ox and the Sheep. This like so many Oxen, is a man who loves his babies.

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.

Central point: the Ox’s power is cyclical, arriving every twelve years and lasting for two. Don’t waste it!

Ox in The Wood Dragon Year 2024

Qua Suk Separated Star

Tin Yute Nobleman Helper

Agony Aunt, Useful Uncle

In 2024 you are everybody’s confidante.

Technically the relationship between the Ox and the Dragon is a Break-Up. Which can be quite literal. The Ox is Yin (or lesser) Earth, that is to say, consistent, loyal, faithful and on the flipside, stubborn as hell. But not as stubborn (or loyal) as the Dragon who is made of Yang (ie greater) Earth. An Ox/Dragon marriage may be deeply uncomfortable and call for considerable me-time for it to work but a temporary Ox/Dragon alliance (like the Ox in a Dragon Year) can be an unstoppable power house and may speak of the disruption that accompanies creativity. That is the upside of what may be a demanding year for you.

The Ox is deeply sensitive. Her time is the witching hour between 1 and 3 a.m. when the veils between the worlds are at their thinnest. They may see/hallucinate/channel/sense/imagine apparitions of all sorts. Oxen are suited, as you might expect, to mediumship, astrology and the world of woo-woo which makes you equally appropriate for the role of Tin Yute. But be careful to separate what you know from what you reckon. The gifted Ox with clear vision and tabloid ideas is a double-edged sword. A career in this area would suit you and bring relative prosperity. But there’s more to you than gossip.

For you wealth is relatively unimportant. You just want the tools that will serve your true vocation which is about the well-being of others. If your daily activity is not in service you tend to shrink. With the world in the state that it’s in your focus may not be on yourself or your loved ones at all. Your eye may well be on the Middle East or North Eastern Europe. In your ba zi, the Life House will offer further detail. The Life House is the voice that calls to you; it’s for you to decide whether you listen. It’s the Siren call that may mislead or inspire.

These are the principles that apply to the prospects of an Ox in a Dragon Year. Indeed this is exactly what the Star Qua Suk prescribes; someone, Ox or otherwise with this in their ba zi may need for their peace of mind if not their survival, to avoid crowding their partner or being crowded. You may need time out. Such steps may invigorate them mightily. Re-charge so as to be able to give. The time since your years of in 2020 and 2021 may have taken you off course and close-to wiped you out.

Time out is best perhaps during the Dragon Month of April when the exhaustion that gives way to irritation can be employed creatively rather than becoming fury. Anger is there to change things. And remember of course that you are not a robot and can learn to contain. Which may be another life-lesson this year. Don’t dump your emotions; there is a distinction between fury and blame.

The Ox, being Yin Earth stands also for fertility and small blockages. As you might guess an Ox mother may sometimes have a demanding time giving birth. Oxen pregnant this year need special care and consideration. She doesn’t cry wolf. Oxen may express this creativity in man ways such as the written or spoken word. Recognising your tenderness leads to deep and touching expression.

Some blockages will be more external: your tendency has always been to stick to a point well past its sell-by date. The Ox’s opinions can be so out of date that they are not even what they believe any more. Be conscious of this. There is Yin Water in the Ox make-up which attended-to, eases self-disclosure.

In a Dragon year this tendency which may seem relevant to you personally, will be exaggerated and so can be mastered. Seek reflection from a Snake – whose vocation is truth – or a Rooster who might distract you usefully. Probably best not to bother a Rat who will simply agree with you wholesale, a Sheep who may hold you to blame or a Horse whose response might be more to get rid of you than solve the problem.

And remember that the way through is through and the right answer is usually yes. To own your blinkers is to shed them. To feel the fear that underlies your stubbornness is to begin to master it. It won’t kill you.

As I say, that Tin Yute Gwai Yan, Nobleman Helper Star calls to the Ox in a very particular way. Oxen this year feel that Agony Aunt, Useful Uncle calling. This may stretch to voluntary or charity work as well as working in large groups who look to you for special perception. But being an Ox, he will take it on long term. Anyone who has the good fortune to find an Ox to bail them out, they’ll still be bailing for you long after the Dragon Year is done.

Your month is January when the world is largely comatose after the winter festivities. This, as one year ends and another begins is the time of vision. It’s the place you live. When your eyes are unfocussed that’s where you are.

February may drain you as may March while April may feature domestic and romantic upset. Be sure to keep your eye on the ball. Value what’s valuable. That upset is solved or sealed during May.

In June you’re driven, July opposed and in August you may find yourself short of company. Two possible reasons for this: one is that you have grown so used to advising others that you feel the need to appear to have all the answers. Which of course you don’t. Nobody does. It may also be that having experienced romantic separation and possibly even rejection this year you have on some level decided to go it alone longer term.

Ox is always drawn to the glamour of the Rooster who as the Dragon’s intimate is in the ascendant this year. So the party season for you opens in September. These parties may be less parties than self-help groups. While you party you build your future.

Most Oxen are suited to late nights. You create fresh opportunities under the dark of October; November is satisfyingly profitable and December finds you back in charge.

Romance: intermittent

Wealth: automatic

Health: periods of depression if you don’t nurture friendships.

Hexagram: 33 Dun The Yielding

This forecast is prepared by comparing your own Chinese year Animal with the Wood Dragon of 2024. Your Year Animal is just one of the four that make up your Ba Zi or Four Pillars of Destiny. A fully-drafted ba zi can indicate possible futures and probable pasts as well as moments of decision. Knowing these moments can heal and prevent heartbreak as well make success and happiness more easily achievable. What is a ba zi?

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