The Twelve Months

The year animal describes how the world sees you. The month animal describes your private self, the way you operate inside when nobody needs performing for. In the Four Pillars tradition it is the second pillar, and in my experience it is the one that makes people go quiet when it is read back to them, because it names the self they only show at home. Your Year, Month and Day Pillars explains how the three fit together.

The months follow the sun. The Chinese solar year is cut into twenty four solar terms and the twelve month animals sit on them, two terms each, so unlike the New Year the month boundaries fall in nearly the same place every year. The solar year opens with the Tiger month at the Start of Spring, about 4 February, which is why the Ox month in January is the last month of the year and not the first. Each month also carries one of the five elements, fixed to that animal, and the elements alternate yang and yin down the list in the same way the animals do.

The dates below are "about". A boundary can move by a day depending on the year, so if you were born within a day of one, read both months and see which one you recognise. The animal order is the same as the years, so once you know the Tiger starts in February you can count the rest.

Where a month has its own post in the daily posts, I have named it. The post is the live sky in a particular year. This page is the reference.

The Tiger month (about 4 February to 5 March, Wood)

Born in the Tiger month, your private self is awake. You feel your life, you want things and you move toward them, and the passion people glimpse in you now and then is where you actually live. Your outer behaviour may comply but your inner judgement defers to nobody. The yang Wood of this month is a young tree pushing upward, so you need to be growing, and a life that stops you growing feels like a pot you have outgrown. In private you love and fight with equal intensity. The work is learning to channel the fire rather than letting it burst out, because the outburst damages what patience would have kept.

The Rabbit month (about 6 March to 4 April, Wood)

Born in the Rabbit month, your private self reads the room before anyone speaks. The feeling between people reaches you first, and you quietly prefer that everyone comes out of a situation whole. That tact is no performance. Ugliness in a room, a relationship or your own work registers as a low ache that drives you toward refinement. The yin Wood of this month bends rather than pushes, so you grow by finding the gap around an obstacle. In private you are tender and attentive, the one who remembers what matters to people. The shadow is swallowing a necessary disagreement to keep the peace, and the swallowed material turns into resentment. Real harmony sometimes needs the hard conversation.

The Dragon month (about 5 April to 4 May, Earth)

Born in the Dragon month, your private self thinks big. Inside, you imagine things that would sound grandiose if you said them aloud, and yet they fit your sense of what you are here for. Squaring that vision with a fair look at yourself is the work of this month. The yang Earth of this month, the Dragon being the Earth animal of spring, puts soil under the dream, and without it the dream stays fantasy. In private you love on a grand scale, sometimes more than the other person can hold. You may feel alone at the top of your own vision. Find peers who can meet you there.

The Snake month (about 5 May to 5 June, Fire)

Born in the Snake month, your private self runs deep, and some of it is a mystery even to you. Insights arrive whole. You see the long game and you know that waiting for the right moment is a kind of action. The Fire of this month is yin, a banked flame rather than a blaze, the steady heat that keeps you warm through a project that takes years. In private you are loyal, but few people are let all the way in, and those few were watched for a long time first. The shadow is suspicion that sees motives that are not there, and a privacy that slides into isolation. Test your perceptions, and let the right people in.

The Horse month (about 6 June to 6 July, Fire)

Born in the Horse month, your private self was not built for cages. You think in motion, and a walk or a drive will often shake loose what sitting still could not. Whatever your outer restraint, something in you burns for the things that matter, and you do not do half hearted about them. The yang Fire of this month radiates outward, so you warm the people near you and you say what you feel. In private you are passionate and generous but you need room, and a partner who grants it gets your return every time. The shadow is leaving before something had the chance to mature. The work is telling a real call to move from plain restlessness.

The Goat month (about 7 July to 6 August, Earth)

Born in the Goat month, your private self is softer than the world you have had to adapt to. Beauty, feeling and the undercurrents of mood all reach you, and your compassion for a struggling stranger or an animal in trouble comes from a deep well. The yin Earth of this month is receptive and nurturing; you hold what is given to you and tend what you are responsible for. In private you love through a hundred small attentions. The shadow is the inner voice that questions your worth, and the habit of going quiet and shutting down when harshness appears. The Month of the Goat post reads this month inside the Fire Horse year.

The Monkey month (about 7 August to 7 September, Metal)

Born in the Monkey month, your private self is a workshop that never closes. Inside, you are solving a puzzle, spotting a pattern or inventing a way around something nobody else thought to go around. The yang Metal of this month is a sharp edge; you cut through problems and you see where the loose bolt is. Your inner commentary on life's absurdities gives you more pleasure than you let on. In private you need a partner who can keep up with your mind and laugh at your jokes. The shadow is using cleverness to work an angle rather than to make something good. The Month of the Monkey post reads this month inside the Fire Horse year.

The Rooster month (about 8 September to 7 October, Metal)

Born in the Rooster month, your private self has standards. You know what quality looks like and you notice when it is absent, even when you say nothing. Structure calms you and chaos grates. The yin Metal of this month is worked gold rather than raw ore, polished and careful. Your craft shows in the fifty small choices nobody told you to make. In private you are loyal but you expect care returned at the level you give it, and you may be quietly disappointed long before you speak. The shadow is the inner critic turned on yourself, and perfectionism that never lets anything be finished. The Month of the Rooster post reads this month inside the Fire Horse year.

The Dog month (about 8 October to 6 November, Earth)

Born in the Dog month, your private self takes right and wrong seriously. You carry an inner compass that registers fairness and betrayal with unusual clarity. Your loyalty is never casual; the people you have chosen have your presence through conditions that scatter lighter attachments. The yang Earth of this month is a mountain, and you do not get blown about by surface storms. In private you are devoted and plain spoken. The shadow is watchfulness that comes from having been let down before, and a moral clarity that can harden into judgement of people whose situation you have not understood. The Month of the Dog post reads this month inside the Fire Horse year.

The Pig month (about 7 November to 6 December, Water)

Born in the Pig month, your private self assumes the best of people until the evidence makes you revise. You give the benefit of the doubt, you want others to flourish beside you, and you enjoy food, rest and good company without treating them as distractions from real life. The yin Water of this month is the deep still pool rather than the running stream, so you hold what comes to you and you reflect on it. In private you love and forgive more easily than most. The shadow is a trusting nature that can be taken advantage of, and giving so freely that nothing is left for you. The work is discernment that protects the generosity without replacing it.

The Rat month (about 7 December to 5 January, Water)

Born in the Rat month, your private self is always observing. The agenda under a stated position and the small tell on a face both reach you, and you rarely feel stuck because your mind is already finding the next move. You talk to yourself more than most, running scenarios that occasionally surprise you when they surface aloud. The yang Water of this month processes feeling below the surface, so what hits you in a moment keeps working in you for days. In private you open your full depth to very few. The shadow is the resourceful mind turned on itself in endless loops. Still water needs an outlet; walk, meditate, talk to someone you trust.

The Ox month (about 6 January to 3 February, Earth)

Born in the Ox month, your private self will not be hurried. You trust your slower pace because slow produces a depth that haste never does. The discipline people see is an inner order you have been building since you were young. The yin Earth of this month keeps your thinking realistic, so fantasy is rare in you and your counsel is worth having. In private you are loyal across decades. The shadow is stubbornness that resists a change that would have served you. This is the last month of the solar year, and a January birth very often takes the previous year's animal too, as The Chinese Calendar and the New Year page explains.

Reading your month

Find your month above and read it beside your year animal from The Animals. The two will either agree or argue, and both are useful. A gentle year animal with a Tiger month has grit nobody expects. A bold year animal with a Rabbit month has a diplomat inside keeping the force from doing damage. The month pillar source notes in my library put it simply: the month adds its quality to whatever year animal you are.

Then, if you can, have the day animal computed, because The Day Animals page describes the core under both.

The Week Ahead every Monday carries a Chinese astrology line for all twelve signs, and the monthly posts named above read each month as it arrives.

Does your month animal describe the person your family knows, or the person your workmates know?

If you would like your own chart read, my readings are here.