Horse 2012

Who is a Horse?

Years: 1942, 1954, 1966, 1978, 1990, 2002.
Month*: June
Hour: 11 am – 13.00
* Caution: the start of the Chinese month can be as early as the 4th & as late as the 9th, depending on the year. I can let you know this too.

What is a Horse?
The horse is yang fire, the charmer, the extrovert, the seducer of the Zodiac, the Horse is rarely caught out despite his high-risk strategy. He has an ego of course but is better able to laugh at himself than for instance the Dragon. Like the Dragon, the Pig and the Rooster though, he can not work with his own kind. The typical Horse is not a deep thinker and his ego leads him to suppose that no one else is either.
There tends to be a belief in shortage, at work in the Horse. He thinks he must be the first to the trough if he is to eat. In romance the Horse like the Rooster, can be what Leonard Cohen calls “a thin gypsy thief”. This means his weakness can be a failure to respect boundaries and property. Of all the animals, the Horse and Rooster are typically the marriage breakers and the home wreckers. This is not inevitable of course. If we know this about ourselves we can make wiser choices. Just because today is a good day to die, it is not necessarily a good day to kill.
Predictably the Horse is often not great at commitment. The yin and yang of this by the way is that a self-aware Horse is the most constant partner there is.
Success matters a great deal to the Horse. He is not generally subtle. It is the winning not the taking part that tends to concern him.
The fiery Horse is not keen on water. He experiences this element whether expressed as a Rat year or as excessive communication, dampening his enthusiasm. Water slows him down but does not halt him.
Interestingly the Horse’s charisma is best expressed either in a team with the other Plum Flowers, Rat, Rabbit and Rooster or with the Sheep. You will often find Sheep and Horse out and about together, the Horse radiating charm and the Sheep reflecting it. This actually is a good partnership; the Sheep is in awe of the sheer daring of the Horse and the reckless Horse may often need grounding, safety and a short term loan.
The Horse’s home team all of whom have fire in common, is with the Tiger and the Dog. These are the hunters of the Zodiac: the Tiger kills, the Horse chases, the Dog guards. This support system is the most likely to bring the Horse rewards. On his own he is prone to burn brightly and extinguish early. He’ll have a good time though.
The Horse finds the Ox hard work also. There is metal hidden in the Ox which the Horse can turn to his advantage but the Ox’s preferences are humdrum to him.
The Horse has visual, imaginative and intellectual gifts but is unlikely to value them enough to put them to good use. So many of the words we use about the virtue of work illustrate the unwillingness of the Horse to stick at things: harness, yoke, saddle, blinker etc. Again the yin and yang is that a conscious Horse never quits.
A Horse who works with a Snake may achieve greatness because the Snake understands the Horse just as she understands the Dragon, additionally the Snake will not need to compete. In many ways the Snake is the perfect partner but it is more likely the Snake will recognise this than the Horse. The Snake suffers in the short term and the Horse in the long.
Racing, partying, playing, the danger for the Horse is burn out. The challenge is to defer gratification long enough that there remains a future.

The Horse: Outlook for 2012

The Dragon is yang Earth to the Horse’s yang Fire. And this year the Horse’s earth – to the South – is scorched. In feng shui terms, the South is host to the Three Curses: Robbery Curse, Place Curse and Calamity Curse. Orthodox advice is not to build, dig or drill there for now. So the Horse is going to be prone to insecurity. By extension, this is a year in which hitherto safe territory may be contested. Freshly married, unflappable Paul McCartney, born in the Horse year of 1942, could for instance find himself involved in issues around intellectual property.

There’s more: like the Dragon, the Horse suffers the self-clash which is to say that Horses don’t get on with Horses. Unlike the Dragon however, the Horse also has issues with the other three Plum Flowers or toe fars: the Rooster, Rat and Rabbit. The Plum Flowers are the Animals of romance and the Dragon favours two of them – Rooster & Rat – but not the Horse. In point of fact as the Horse is ill at ease with both of these, the Dragon reacts by being uneasy with the Horse. It follows then that this year with the Dragon in power, is unlikely to be comfortable in relation to romance but like all threats, within it are both the key to its solution and a gift. Irascible Fire Horse Gordon Ramsay might find the following useful.

The charm of the Horse is guileless spontaneity. In 2012 you may see a threat to your job, your friendships, membership of organisations and your closest relationships and unless you pay close attention, you may react with guileless, spontaneous foolishness. You might even occasionally become abusive. This is a function of spontaneity but it doesn’t actually work for you. The best response to a threat is to understand how it is that you caused it. Yes, you.

You are quite likely however to react with threats, abuse and miscellaneous forms of attack, all of which seem justified to you. Don’t. If you see your responsibility, there is no need for you to lose anything. That which is threatened, will if it truly belongs to you, return to you. The gift here is that of patience. The lesson is to look within yourself for authorship of your life.

The Horse’s health could be up and down this year. The yang Earth of the Dragon which implies frustration to your yang Fire, suggests its corollaries: potentially raised blood pressure and issues of blockage. The Horse also may have problems with skin and eyes. Appropriate diet is the key: water, green vegetables, exercise and sunshine. Often the answer to all of a Horse’s problems is a spell in the sun.

In commerce, you may bite off more than you can chew. This is a signal to pace yourself. Everything is cyclical. This too shall pass. If you are patient, the moment will come around when even the most demanding tasks become child’s play. You are the Lord of Fire which rules 2013, 2014 and 2015.