Dog 2013
Who is a Dog?
Years: 1946, 1958, 1970, 1982, 1994, 2006.
Month*: October
Hour: 07:00 pm – 09:00 pm
Day: ask us
* 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 Dog?
The Dog is yang earth and a byword for good faith and consistency. Terriers and Rotweilers are both fierce as well as loyal. In mediaeval heraldry and Renaissance painting, the greyhound symbolises constancy.
So a Dog can be expected to revere tradition and have a strong family background. If a Dog commits to something they can generally be relied upon to see it to completion. The difference between male and female Dogs can be that the female gets the message quicker. Interesting to note that Kate Middleton and Prince William are twin Water Dogs of 1982; a very solid match because as a yang earth sign, the Dog is pretty immovable, an ideal best friend or protector. These two are, first and foremost, good friends.
The Dog’s thinking may not always be flexible but when he gets an idea, he really gets it. His natural grouping is with the hunters, the Horse and Tiger. The apportionment of tasks here is obvious: the Horse provides pace and the Tiger ferocity while the Dog watches the rear. If HR people studied Chinese metaphysics, more workplaces would zing: in business the Horse will tend to be the sales person, the Tiger the closer or credit controller and the Dog the provider of after-sales service or er…HR department.
The Dog excels at service because he never gives up. He will return your phone calls and keep that appointment. He’s the friend who sends a card every birthday and the spouse who remembers every anniversary.
The Dog also, perhaps surprisingly, mixes well with the gentle diplomatic Rabbit. The Rabbit schmoozes while the Dog ensures that his openness is not abused. The Dog makes a wonderful bodyguard and middle manager. A Dog employer will have achieved that position by sheer hard work and will demand the same from all around.
The Dog doesn’t like the Dragon because he’s such a smarty pants. Also the Dog hates success without effort and the Dragon creates with such apparent ease. The Snake too; he’d resent the Horse except that he is scrupulously loyal to his own team.
An unbalanced Dog is a bit of a shop steward. He knows his rights and the way things should be – often the way they always have been. An unbalanced Dog (such as one with an October or mid-evening birth) is just too respectful.
The Dog will often have a strong spiritual agenda and if he has a blind spot it may be an inability to tell the difference between religion and spirituality or spirituality and therapy. Because this means he sticks to his guns, the Dog is suited both to new age therapy and religious persecution. He will not be thrown off by the opinions of others once he has committed to a line of action. In fact the unbalanced Dog can be thick skinned in matters of belief; this Dog would be ideally suited to being a Grand Inquisitor. The problem is that his motto ought to be “Do as you would be done by,” and he thinks it already is.
The Dog can work well with other Dogs and with the Pig. With the Pig he shares a love of home and team and they are so different they don’t crowd each other. Sometimes the Dog and Pig can be telepathically close; this is because they are adjacent signs in the calendar linked by the yang earth that is a feature of both. Sometimes this earth is expressed by banter or earthy humour. They can have a lot of fun together while getting the job done.
But the most powerful and most demanding role the Dog can play is in a creative team including the irritating Dragon, the autocratic Ox and the soft Sheep. If the Dog acts as conscience and bookkeeper, the Ox will relax, the Sheep toughen up and the Dragon acknowledge someone else for a change. If you are a Dog recruiting for non-executive directors take note. What is great about the Dog is that if he finds advice that works he will adopt it as if it were religion. Bless.
Dog 2013:
Stars include: Bon An Achievement, Red Phoenix, Xiao Hao Self-indulgence.
You have a great deal going for you this year. Last year was unusually demanding; from October 2011 to date you may have been challenged in a hundred different ways. For “demanding” read “testing”. You should know yourself better now. Each challenge was an opportunity to grow or shrink. How big are you now? Physically and figuratively your stomach may have proved weak. It’s likely you made some poor decisions and the knock-on effects are still with you. Choices of partner may be central to this. You may not have shown much skill at discerning what is and what is not good for you. You’ve probably been even worse at following it when you did know. There’ll be mopping-up to do.
So you may enter this year a little shell-shocked. Relax: this is cyclical. The Dragon year is generally trying for the Dog and vice-versa. Dog and Dragon are so alike. Neither gives an inch. Hexagram 52.
But you share Fire and yang Earth with this year’s Snake which probably means your health will be sound again this year and your judgement returns. Partner and other issues are only acute in the sense that there are consequences to some of the actions you took last year.
There may be a temptation to over-correct. Not all your choices last year were unsound. First job is to perhaps to assess which is which. Right now are you doing what you want to do? Are you with who you wish to be with? In many senses this year offers a free ticket but you’ll have to apply.
Best to restore order to your diet. Reinstate the exercise regime. Weight can be an issue in a Dragon year. Not so much in a Snake year. Actually the hidden Metal of the Snake is an aid to weight loss. The calendar is full of good dates to get back in charge.
And under the Snake there’s something explosive about you. This means broadly that you are called to be spontaneous and instinctive. Less calculating. You may protest that you did that last year but this is a whole new thing; now you can be simultaneously instinctive and appropriate. If you sit still, the explosion will happen underneath you anyway. It may turn up in a thousand unconscious ways including minor illness. This is an invaluable lesson from the universe that there is almost nothing we can control. Once acknowledged, this fact affords you mastery over your fate this year. Don’t sleep through it.
Health: older Dogs should seek a full check up at the beginning of the year. Breathing issues are possible.
Money: resources drawn on. There will be pressure to stick with positions past their sell-by date.
Relationship: Simple: this year you unearth your power by empowering others.
Feng Shui: activate Horse (S2) and Tiger (NE3) for the commercial edge of Fortune Virtue and the blessing of the Sun.
Readers’ Digest Version: Open up all over again.
Richard Ashworth©2012