The Water Rooster

general summary for a person born in a Water Rooster year of the Chinese calendar; outside astronomy

What the tradition reads

The Chinese zodiac is a calendrical tradition rather than an astronomical one, kept in this corpus as its own labelled system and never folded into a sun sign or a placement it happens to sit beside: it runs on the lunisolar calendar rather than on the ecliptic, and a year's animal and element are fixed by the date of the lunar new year, not by any planet's position. The twelve year animal cycle combines with the five element cycle, Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal and Water, each element holding for two consecutive years, to make a full cycle of sixty years before the same animal and element pairing recurs. The Rooster's own Wikipedia page states little beyond its years and elements, but the zodiac's traditional naming of the day's double hours remembers the Rooster's hour as the time when roosters head back to their coops for the night, an orderliness the tradition reads into the sign. A widely used Chinese astrology reading of it describes people born under it as hard working, honest, courageous, independent and quick witted talkers, though inclined, by the same reading, toward arrogance and impatience. Water, the element of winter and of stillness turned inward, is read as deepening the Rooster's diligence into reflection and adaptability, a quieter version of the same quality that runs calm on the surface but can turn elusive or withdrawn.

The story

The Goat, Monkey and Rooster arrived together at a river choked with weeds. The Rooster found a raft to carry them, while the Goat and Monkey tugged and pulled to clear a path through the tangle, and by this combined effort all three reached the far side. The Jade Emperor, pleased with their teamwork, named the Rooster tenth of the twelve, after the Goat and the Monkey. Water, the element paired with this particular Rooster year, comes from the Wu Xing, the five phase system used across Chinese thought for cycles of generation and control: Water is placed in the north and in winter, a period of reclusiveness, stillness and consolidation associated with coolness, generated by Metal's collecting and purifying and, in the same cycle, giving rise to Wood, which it nourishes. The Rooster and the Rabbit stand directly opposite one another in the twelve year wheel, six years apart, and the tradition names that particular pairing one of the six clashes, the oppositions across the cycle it considers most likely to produce friction rather than ease. Against that, the tradition pairs the Rooster with the Dragon in what it calls one of the six harmonies, a match it reads as running more easily than most.

Written from

Corpus key chinese:Water-Rooster.