Last night, Friday 7 August, in Chinese astrology, the year changed gears again.
The gentle Goat month has ended, and the month of the Fire Monkey has begun. It runs until early September.
If the Goat was the graze, the Monkey is the game.
The Monkey is the clever one of the twelve: quick, curious, inventive, the one who looks at a locked door and starts checking the windows.
And this is a Fire Monkey month, inside the Fire Horse year. Fire on fire. The year’s momentum is back, and this time it is carrying ideas instead of just speed.
If you read my post on the friends and rivals of the zodiac, you might remember the Monkey sits in the doers trine with the Rat and the Dragon.
This is a month for solving things. The problem you have been pushing at head on all year may open sideways in August.
So what does a Monkey month ask of you?
Play with it. The Monkey solves nothing while it is grim, and everything while it is curious. Try the other way in. Swap the tool, change the route, ask a different question.
And keep your discernment close. The Monkey’s shadow is cleverness for its own sake, the trick that impresses nobody but the trickster. Use the quickness in service of something that matters.
The western sky has a big week coming, and I will have more to say about that tomorrow, Sunday 9 August.
For now, let the Monkey remind you that there is always another way in.
What is one problem you could come at sideways this month?