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Chinese Astrology 101

Your Friendly Familiar

A Beginner’s Guide

Hello, my dear friends!  Well, here’s a long-awaited post that hopefully covers the basics of Chinese Astrology and Lunar Calendar.  Wow!  There is so much to cover that it’ll be impossible to go into detail about it all in this single post.  I’ve tried my best learning about it and I must admit, even I still find it confusing and complicated at times.  But that’s ok!  That’s why we’re here, right?  We’re here to learn the best we can.  I know this post won’t do the topic justice and I’ll do the best I can to go over what I’ve learned to share with you.  This post will be broken up into 3 Parts: Chinese Astronomy, Chinese Zodiac & Other Components, and the Lunar Calendar.  Ok, everyone!  Buckle your seatbelts and get ready for this exciting ride as we explore Chinese Astrology and other elements involved with it!  Here we go!

Table of Contents

    Part 1: Chinese Astronomy

    In traditional Chinese Astronomy, if one were to look at the entire night sky, it would be divided into 5 sections or groups.  In the Northern Sky there was the 1st Group consisting of the Twenty-Eight Mansions (二十八宿 Èrshíbā Xiù) along the ecliptic and the 2nd and 3rd Groups lie within the Three Enclosures (三垣 Sān Yuán).  The Twenty-Eight Mansions are grouped into 4 Symbols (Azure/Blue Dragon of the East 東方青龍 Spring, Black Tortoise of the North 北方玄武 Winter, White Tiger of the West 西方白虎 Autumn, and Vermillion Bird [or Red Phoenix] of the South 南方朱雀 Summer) that represent a compass direction and each Symbol contains 7 Mansions with constellations (thus, 4 x 7 = 28 Mansions!).  The Three Enclosures contain the Purple Forbidden Enclosure (紫微垣 Zǐ Wēi Yuán), the Supreme Palace Enclosure (太微垣 Tài Wēi Yuán), and the Heavenly Market Enclosure (天市垣 Tiān Shì Yuán), which contain their own specific constellations.  The Southern Sky was added during the Ming Dynasty of the 1500s as the 5th group that was based on European star charts of the time.  Within these 5 groups, there are constellations (星官 xīng guān or “officials”), much like in Western Astronomy.  However!  Chinese constellations are typically smaller in size in comparison.  In the 1200s, the Song Dynasty made the Suzhou planisphere or star chart that contained 283 constellations in all!  As you can imagine, I will not go into detail of all these constellations now.  But now that we have the astronomy background and basics in mind, we can move forward to what I consider the most fun part of Chinese Astrology!  

    Part 2: Chinese Zodiac & Other Components

    Please keep in mind, there are many detailed and complicated aspects… it can be quite confusing, so please don’t feel bad if none of this makes sense.  I’ve been trying to learn this for a long time, and I still sometimes feel like I don’t really understand.  But that’s why we’re here, right?  To learn the best we can!

    12 Zodiac Signs

    (I am thinking about making separate posts about each of the Chinese Zodiac Animals in more detail, kind of like how I’ve been doing with the Western Astrology Zodiac Sun Signs.  Let me know if you’d be interested in that.  But for the purposes of this post, I will do my best to provide as brief of summaries as I can for all the components that come with Chinese Astrology and the Calendar.)

    There are 12 Zodiac Signs in Chinese Astrology, all of which are animals and follow a specific order.  You’ll notice that there are 2 Chinese Characters.  For example, the Rat has 鼠 and (子).  鼠 is the Chinese Character for the animal itself, whilst the parenthesized Character (子) stands for the Zodiac Sign.

    Depending on where you are in the world, these Zodiac Signs may differ.  For example, some cultures have a Sheep instead of a Goat, a Buffalo or Cow instead of an Ox, or a Cat instead of a Rabbit.  (I’m thinking of making a separate post that explores the different variations and adaptations of the Chinese Zodiac.  Let me know if you’d be interested in that!)  Western Astrology, the 12 Zodiac Signs correlate to a month or a roughly 30-day time period.  However, in Chinese Astrology, the Zodiac Signs represent a year, which many people know.  For example, 2022 is the Year of the Tiger.  However, many people do not realize that the Zodiac Animals can also represent months, days, and even hours!  I will go over this later in Part 3 involving the Lunar Calendar.  For now, I wish to mainly focus on the main components that come with discussing the Chinese Zodiac.

    5 Elements

    In Western Astrology, there are typically 4 Elements: Fire, Water, Earth, and Air.  These elements are seen as basic building blocks of someone’s personality or traits.  However, in Chinese Astrology, there are 5 Elements (wuxing): Fire, Water, Earth, Wood, and Metal.  And these elements do not provide someone’s personality, per say.  Rather, they provide different kinds of information.  It’s important to note that the Chinese word “xing” is typically translated as “element” in English, but the direct, literal translation is more accurately along the lines of “changing states or metamorphoses of being” or “permutations.”  Thus, these Elements are seen as more ever changing or fluid, unlike Western Elements.  So you can view the following chart as an overview of the 5 Elements of “Changes.”  

    There are also the notions of a Wuxing Generating Cycle (生 sheng) and a Wuxing Controlling Cycle (克 kè) involving the 5 Elements.  The Wuxing Generating Cycle (a.k.a. Creation Cycle) can also be described as a creation, enhancing, growing, begetting, mothering, and inter-promoting cycle.  It expresses the ideas that Fire creates Earth, Water makes Wood grow, Earth bears Metal, Wood makes Fire burn, and Metal allows Water to flow off it.  The Wuxing Controlling Cycle (a.k.a. Destruction Cycle) expresses the opposite.  It shows the cycle involving destruction, weakening, overcoming, and inter-restraining.  For example, Fire melts Metal, Water controls Fire, Earth soaks up and blocks the flow of Water, Wood breaks Earth, and Metal chops down Wood.

    The 12 Zodiac Animal Signs all carry a fixed element within them.  For example, all people born in a Year of the Rat carry a fixed nature element of Water.  (I put a chart below showing that.)  However!!  Usually when elements are involved with Chinese Astrology, it is in reference to the specific numbered year a person is born and not the Zodiac Animal.  For example, someone born in the 1993 Year of the Rooster has the Water Element.  Someone born in the 1969 Year of the Rooster has the Earth Element.  And someone born in the 2041 Year of the Rooster has the Metal Element.  Thus, typically, when determining your Element, the year is more important and not necessarily the Zodiac Sign.  (Further down this post I’ll write about the years in Chinese Astrology, where you’ll find a series of charts that will show a person’s Element for their birth year.  So look forward to that!)  A professional Chinese Astrologist can take both your birth year element (like a person’s 1993 Rooster Water Element) and their Zodiac Animal Sign element (like a Rooster’s Fixed Metal Element) to make predictions or divinations based on their combination.  But that’s going into way too much detail for this introductory post for now.

    Yin-Yang

    Yin-Yang (陰陽) is a concept that is a primary principle in Chinese philosophy and plays a big role in Chinese Astrology, the Chinese Calendar, and other Chinese traditions.  The Yin-Yang symbol show a circular balance between black and white halves.  Yin is the black area of the circle and represents the following: negativity, overcast, darkness, cold, emptiness, even numbers, and femininity.  Yang is the white half of the circle and represents: positivity, sunlight, hot, fullness, lightness, odd numbers, and masculinity.  The idea of Yin-Yang is that there is always opposing forces in the universe.  Everything in nature has two opposites that are connected, intertwined, complement each other, and keep each other balanced.  Every Chinese Zodiac Sign is either Yin or Yang and this information, along with your Sign’s element, plays a strong role in Chinese Astrology and your astrology readings and analysis.  For example, it greatly influences your compatibility, personality characteristics, and even how your future will unfold.  Yin and Yang can be found in 6 Zodiac Animal Signs each.  I made a quick chart below for your convenience:

    Trines

    Strictly-astronomy speaking, a Trine refers to an angle that’s 120° and 1/3 of the 360° ecliptic.  In Chinese Astrology, if used in the context of an event, it can be used to show a past or current situation moving forward in a natural way.  Otherwise, Trines (三合 sānhé) represents something innate that comes easily and provides harmony.  It can be natural gifts, abilities, talents, behaviors, or personality characteristics.  This is kind of similar how in the Western Astrology that each of the 12 Zodiac Signs carry their own specific characteristics and traits.  But instead of having 12 Trines that describe each of the Zodiac Signs, in Chinese Astrology, the 4 Trines have 3 Animals each (thus 三 [sān], meaning “3”, is found in the Chinese name for Trine):

    Earthly Branches

    There are 12 Earthly/Terrestrial Branches (十二地支 shí’èr dìzhī).  Originally, Chinese Astronomers divided the celestial circle or star chart into 12 parts that followed the 12-year orbit of Jupiter (歲星 Suìxīng).  Historically speaking, the 12 years of Jupiter’s cycle can also correlate to the following: the 12 months of the year (the 12 Zodiac Animal Signs are mnemonics for this system!), the seasons and the 12 traditional Chinese units of time (both of which we will go over later in Part 3!), and cardinal directions.  Also, they were words used by Chinese Astronomers/Astrologers and Mariners for directions beyond the standard 4 Cardinal Directions.  It can be compared to when English-speaking pilots/boat captains use o’clockto describe a navigation direction.  In modern times, the Earthly Branches are used together with the Heavenly Stems in the Taoism and the current “traditional Chinese Calendar.”  Nowadays, they are still commonly used in Chinese counting systems that can be compared to the alphabet in English.  For our purposes, you will notice that the 12 Earthly Branches are correlated with the 12 Chinese Zodiac Animals.  Below is an easy picture to show:

    Heavenly Stems

    There are 10 Heavenly/Celestial Stems (天干 tiāngān).  Back in 1250 BC in the Shang dynasty they were established as the names of the 10 days of the week.  When combined with the 12 Earthly Branches, they created a compound 60-day cycle.  Over time, the Heavenly Stems were no longer used as days of the week and are commonly used in East Asia presently as a counting system like that of the Earthly Branches and the idea of English alphabet.  The best way to become familiar with the 10 Heavenly Stems is to think back to when we discussed the 5 Elements and Yin-Yang.  Take each Element and there is a Yin version and a Yang version.  These add up to the 10 Heavenly Stems, and there’s a useful image below to show them!

    Summary

    Phew!  That was a lot, huh?!  Below is a quick chart that reviews what we’ve covered, for your convenience.   Keep in mind, this is a general overview of each Zodiac Sign with their fixed element (one that all in that Zodiac carry) and their Yin/Yang, Trine, and Earthly Branches.  Heavenly Stems are trickier and vary greatly depending on a person’s birth year and not necessarily their Zodiac Sign.

    And now that we’ve finally covered the Chinese Zodiac, let’s move forward and apply it to the last part of this long, complicated post: the Lunar Calendar!

    Part 3: Lunar Calendar

    Alright!  We’re on to the final Chapter in this Chinese Astrology post!  Here we’re going to cover how the Chinese Zodiac applies to the Lunar Calendar.  Let’s go have fun!

    Year

    As I mentioned before when introducing the Chinese Zodiac Signs, many people are aware of the animals representing entire years.  But it is important to note that Chinese Astrology follows the Lunar Calendar, not the Gregorian Calendar.  So the Lunar New Year may fall after January 1st.  Keep that in mind if you’re born in January of February because your Chinese Zodiac Sign may actually be different than what you may think it is from a Western Gregorian Calendar perspective!  Also, as mentioned before, the Chinese Lunar Calendar is a sexagenary cycle, or one that repeats after 60 years due to the Calendar and Zodiac components that vary year-by-year (including yin/yang, nature element, heavenly stem, earthly branch).  Below are some charts broken down by 12-year segments for your quick reference, beginning with the Rat, which is the first Zodiac Sign in chronological order.  So check it out!  Find out what’s special about your birth year!

    1 / 7

    Now that we’ve covered years, let’s break it down a step further into months!

    Month

    In Chinese Astrology, in addition to individual Years, the 12 Zodiac Animals also correlate to Lunar Months and can oftentimes be referred to as the agricultural calendar. When doing divination about a person’s life, many professional Chinese Astrologists consider the Month to be the most important information and it can also reflect about that person’s childhood, upbringing, and parents.  It is important to note, that the Chinese Calendar is divided into 24 fortnights (roughly 2 weeks) called Solar Terms.  Also, interestingly, the Lunar Months begin with the Tiger, not the Rat like in the Lunar Year Cycles.  Here is a chart that goes into further details for your amusement.  I’ve also went ahead and added how the Lunar Month and Solar Terms may relate to Western Astrology dates if that helps you get a better overall grasp on the timeline:

    Day

    The Chinese Zodiac animals can also represent days of the week, which are called “True Animals.”  But you are probably wondering to yourself: “Wait!  There are 12 Zodiac animals and only 7 days of the week!”  You are right!  In fact, the ancient Chinese calendar had 10 days of the week!  So it still doesn’t add up, huh?  So, as you can imagine, the day is difficult to calculate since the Zodiac Signs and the days of the week will not align perfectly.  When a professional Chinese Astrologist wants to figure out your Chinese Zodiac birth day to determine your element (also known as Day Master), they will most likely have a resource or tool at hand to help them quickly do the calculations.  Thus, you can see why I can’t exactly list all the individual days of all the years and their corresponding Zodiac Signs here, hahaha!

    Hour

    You may remember how back when we learned about Earthly Branches, each Branch character correlated with a Zodiac Sign.  Well, these characters can also refer to a 2-hour time period.  For example, 马 (for Horse) means Noon plus the time frame from 11:00 – 13:00 (11:00 AM – 1:00 PM).  Below is a reference chart that shows the different time periods with their correlating Zodiac Animal:

    Four Pillars of Destiny

    The Four Pillars of Destiny (a.k.a. Ba-Zi) in Chinese means “eight characters” or “eight words.”  Remember how every year, month, day, and hour carry their specific Heavenly Stem and Earthly Branch characters that repeat every 60 years? Well, the idea is that a professional Chinese Astrologist can learn a person’s fate or destiny by these 2 characters for a person’s birth year, month, day, and hour.  With these 8 characters in total, a Chinese Astrologist can compare them to the 10-Year Luck Cycle (十年大运).  This is very difficult to do and many, if not most, professionals have tools in hand to help them with this very complicated and normally time-consuming process.  As you can imagine, I cannot possibly list every possible combination nor go into much further detail on this post.  (There are a few websites you can find where you can input your birth date information to receive your Four Pillars of Destiny.  I recommend Googling or searching for “10 year luck cycle” or something similar to hopefully find these free resources.)

    Conclusion

    *sigh*  Ok, let’s all take a deep breath!  I think we should definitely call it a day on that one!  So what do you think?  I know that is a ton of information.  Do you follow the Lunar Calendar?  If so, is it the same as this Chinese description or does it differ?  If so, how?  Was there anything about Chinese Astrology that you found interesting?  If you are familiar with Chinese Astrology, was there anything I got incorrect or that I misunderstood?  Since everything is quite detailed and complicated, I would not be surprised in the very least if I stated something wrong or misleading.  So please let me know in the comments.  I always am interested in learning and sharing this knowledge with you, my friends!

    As you can see, the concept of Chinese Astrology is so deep and vast with many complicated and detailed information found within all of its components.  I knew this was going to be quite the long post like with my Astrology 101 post, and I apologize for that.  But I hope I provided some information for you to think about over time.  Maybe you’ll find Chinese Astrology as your calling and you’d want to learn more!  I personally do not know many people who specialize in this field, and based on what I’ve heard from Students who are trying to learn more on their own, it is quite the long, tedious, and sometimes confusing process.  But please do not let that discourage you!!  If you want to learn and try, I’m sure you can do it!  You may be the next great professional in the field!  Who knows?!  If after reading this long post you’ve concluded this is not your thing, that’s ok, I totally understand.  Maybe something else will catch your eye, mind, and heart.  We shall see!  Thank you again, my dear friends, for reading this post and I look forward to learning more with you again in the future!

    “What lies behind you and what lies in front of you, pales in comparison to what lies inside of you.”

    – Ralph Waldo Emerson

     

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