The Water Snake

general summary for a person born in a Water Snake 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 Snake, sixth of the twelve animals, is read in Chinese symbology as "intelligent, with a tendency to lack scruples," a cunning the founding race treats approvingly rather than as a mark against it, since it was wit rather than speed that won the Snake its place: hidden, unseen, on the Horse's hoof for the length of the crossing, then startling the Horse into stumbling just before the finish. Water, the element of winter and of stillness turned inward, is read as deepening the Snake's cunning 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and adaptability, a quieter version of the same quality that runs calm on the surface but can turn elusive or withdrawn.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

As the Horse came galloping toward the crossing, the Snake, which had hidden unseen on the Horse's hoof for the whole of the race, suddenly appeared and startled it, causing the Horse to fall back at the very end. The Snake slipped past to take sixth place, leaving the frightened Horse to arrive seventh, a placing the tradition credits to cunning timed for exactly the right moment rather than to any speed of its own. Water, the element paired with this particular Snake 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 Snake and the Pig 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 Snake with the Monkey 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-Snake.