Wishing You Luck in the Year of the Tiger!

OK! Over the last dozen years, we have suffered through lots of rats, oxen, and yang-animals, but we have finally busted through to a GRRRRreat year! Happy Lunar New Year 4719–the year of the Water Tiger! Tigers are pretty obviously the best option in the Chinese Zodiac (unless you somehow have a fixation on dragons, which, you know, don’t actually exist…unlike certain stripey & charismatic giant land predators I could name). Of course the question of how much longer the mighty cats will continue to exist in the poacher-filled forests of our used-up planet is a dark question which we will leave for a subsequent post (but which will quietly haunt us as we drive around our land of concrete and garbage). For right now, though, let’s bask in the warm & gentle (and false) glow of friendly horoscope predictions! According to some random website site I found a great oracle of profound wisdom, this tiger year is destined to be a very prosperous year! Also, as in other tiger years, you are extremely likely to personally accomplish noteworthy feats of strength, valor, and exorcism! Usually I would make a joke about casting out evil spirits and malicious sorcery, but not in 2022 er…4719. Even as I write this, I am burning joss sticks, singing Taoist spells, and wearing lucky colors. Let’s cast some of this evil out of the land, for real!

Speaking of lucky colors, the perspicacious sages of ancient China also compiled a handy list of fortunate and auspicious colors for you to wear during this water tiger year. Here is what you should wear (depending on your own horoscope animal of course).

• Rat: red and blue
• Ox: red and yellow
• Tiger: orange, black, and blue
• Rabbit: green, purple and orange
• Dragon: yellow and white
• Snake: tangerine, cyan, and silver
• Horse: green, blue and red
• Goat: bright yellow
• Monkey: white and baby blue
• Rooster: yellow
• Dog: yellow, black and grey
• Pig: yellow, green and black

I guess I had better come up with some orange, black, and blue ensembles: this is supposed to be a lucky year for romance (although, frankly, that combination sounds less like a tiger swimming through a river and more like somebody beat up a crossing guard). This other website says tigers should just wear red, which sounds like better advice (chromatically if not sartorially). The other thing this second website says is that we should buy kumquat trees to decorate our houses. Hmm, it sounds like “big kumquat” might have bribed whoever wrote this.

You can (and should) look up more of these fun and funny New Years suggestions, but right now I am going to go eat some dumplings and citrus fruits. I will write some real posts about tigers later this week. Happy New Year! (In the spirit of Yuan Duan This article was a bit tongue-in-cheek but I was serious about exorcising evil)

虎年大吉! We are going to have a great tiger year and reclaim our lives!

The Snake Bearer

The ancient Babylonians looked up at the glittering night stars and saw the shapes they knew from nature and from the myths of Mesopotamian civilization: a lion, a maiden, a scale, a scorpion, a centaur archer, a water goat (?),  a water bearer, a pair of fish, twins, a ram, a bull, and a solipsistic crab.  For thousands of years, these ancient emblems fascinated the imagination and represented the changing influence of the heavens upon humankind throughout the year.   Roman astronomers and calendar makers formally enshrined the twelve symbols as a circle of twelve 30° divisions of celestial longitude: a calendar for the whole year.  This zodiac has been with us for a long time. The twelve figures lie at the center of the fun pseudoscience of astrology (which has no rational validity but which is a great way to strike up conversations and analyze the most fascinating subject of our times: the self).

But what if the Babylonians and the Romans got it wrong?  There was always some awkward wiggle room in their calculations.  Was there a 13^th zodiac sign which ancient magi/natural philosophers skipped out of ignorance, fear, or fascination with the number 12?  This is the provocative but largely meaningless question posed by NASA in a spectacular announcement of a newly found thirteenth constellation!  Well actually they have not so much found this constellation Ophiuchus, as reinstated it in the circle of the night sky as illustrated in the stunning graphic below.

Orpiurchus, “The Snake-bearer” has long been in the heavens—although it is hard to see from northern latitudes–and astrologists and iconographers have flirted with the idea of including him in the classic zodiac (which kind of only works in the northern hemisphere anyway).   The snake bearer does have an emotional resonance with Mesopotamian, Greco-Roman, AND Judaeo-Christian cultures, all of which have intense snake-themed myths about knowledge, hubris, and humankind’s uneasy place in the cosmos.

ZodiacBooks.com presents us with an overview of the emotional traits of these new snake carriers as, “spirited, magnetic, impulsive, clever, flamboyant, and at times jealous, power-hungry, and temperamental [people born in this sign] want to heal the world of all ills and bring everyone closer together.” Hmm, it sort of sounds like everyone I know except for my crabby Cancer friend.  Obviously shoehorning a whole 13^th symbol into the calendar has moved everything around, so here are the new dates, if you are afraid you might actually have some other personality than the one you have always had:

Capricorn: January 20-February 16

Aquarius: February 16-March 11

Pisces: March 11-April 18

Aries: April 18-May 13

Taurus: May 13-June 21

Gemini: June 21-July 20

Cancer: July 20-August 10

Leo: August 10-September 16

Virgo: September 16-October 30

Libra: October 30-November 23

Scorpio: November 23-November 29

Ophiuchus: November 29-December 17

Sagittarius: December 17-January 20

Of course a cynical natural scientist might surmise that random patterns of stars (which lie many many light years from each other) have no influence whatsoever on our little lives.  NASA, which deals in real science and engineering, but which desperately needs ATTENTION to thrive in our chaotic late-stage democracy says as much on their website.  They have essentially slapped a “for novelty purposes only” asterisk on this entire story (AND on astrology). We will see if Orpiurchus becomes a lasting part of the heavens or if he slinks back into dark obscurity like he did in the 1970s (or in this beautiful Rouseeau painting below which has nothing to do with this attention-seeking story). In the meantime, this is a fine opportunity to talk to people about their personalities and their birthdays and about what they want from the world. Whatever his nature, the snake-bearer can thus help us fulfil the true purpose of astrology!

The Year of the Ram

Today is Chinese New Year! Happy Year of the Ram! This is a controversial zodiac year—at least during this era. For one thing, it is unclear whether the ancient Chinese character representing this year’s zodiac sign should be translated as ram, sheep, or goat. Although sheep are herded in the northwestern grasslands of China, they are far less prevalent than goats. Throughout the rest of East Asia the distinction is clearer: Vietnam celebrates the year of the goat; whereas Japan is emphatically in the sheep camp. However in China, the exact animal varies by region. Here at Ferrebeekeeper it is sheep week, so we are going to go with sheep—but we are going to say “ram” (a horned adult male sheep) so that everyone recognizes we are dealing with a horned caprid of some textual ambiguity.

Can’t we all just get along?

There is an additional problem: in contemporary China the sheep is regarded as one of the worst of all zodiac signs. The virtues associated with a sheep personality are not currently en vogue in venal laissez-faire China. People born in the year of the ram are said to be gentle, compassionate, kind-hearted, and artistic. These were not necessarily considered bad attributes in classical China, but in today’s mercenary world of slippery business deals they are equated with weakness. The newspapers are filled with articles foretelling a dearth of newborns in 2015 as expectant mothers skip having babies to wait for more predatory zodiac creatures.

The trouble has been compounded by the chief executive of Hong Kong, Leung Chun-ying, an unpopular communist-appointed mandarin who has been attempting to quell the restive island by a wide variety of techniques. His most recent attempt to quash conflicting voices was a New Year’s exhortation to be more like the biddable sheep. Leung stated:

Sheep are widely seen to be mild and gentle animals living peacefully in groups…Last year was no easy ride for Hong Kong. Our society was rife with differences and conflicts. In the coming year I hope that all people in Hong Kong will take inspiration from the sheep’s character and pull together in an accommodating manner to work for Hong Kong’s future.

The phrasing takes on a particularly sinister bent considering that Leung Chun-ying is universally (and completely unofficially!) known as “the wolf”. His new year’s speech was cartoonishly in keeping with this sobriquet.

[image unrelated to Hong Kong]

Politics and zodiac nonsense aside, I would like to speak a word for the rams (who must be feeling uncharacteristically disliked as their year begins). Finding joy in beauty self-evidently means a life filled with joy and beauty (abstracts which blunt shiny business people often are incapable of grasping). Likewise loving people have love in their lives. Speaking of which, I have a sneaking suspicion that there will be just as many babies this year as ever! I hope lunar new year finds you eating dumplings and pomelos with your loved ones. May everyone find kindness, beauty, and peace in the Year of the Ram!