The Dog in the Year of the Wood Snake 2025

Dog Pic by @elliespinelli

Who is a Dog?

Years:         1946, 1958, 1970, 1982, 1994, 2006, 2018.
Month*:      October
Hour:          19.00-21.00

Day: you’ll need a Chinese Calendar.

* Caution: the start of the Chinese month can be as early as the 4th & as late as the 9th, depending on the year. We can let you know this too.

What is a Dog?
The Dog is yang earth and a byword for faith and consistency. Terriers and Rotweilers are as fierce as they are loyal. In mediaeval heraldry and Renaissance painting, the greyhound symbolises constancy. The downside of this is that like 1946 Fire Dog Donald Trump and two of his three predecessors (ie not Obama – naturally), they can take some moving on. And the primary force in the world in 2022 remains the eclipse of the post-war era which opened in the Fire Dog year of their birth 1946, and the search for a new beginning in which humanity has some chance of survival. Only rejection of the dogma of perpetual growth which continues to ravage the planet offers an escape. You Dogs may be absorbed with that very question. Google the Volker Plan or the Nixon Shock, both cooked up in the Dog Year of 1970 if you want to fully understand this.

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 – for better or worse. 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, whatever appears to occur to the contrary, first and foremost good friends.

The Dog’s thinking may not always be flexible but when he gets an idea, he really gets it; that’s yang Earth for you. His natural grouping is with the hunters, the Horse and Tiger where the apportionment of tasks is obvious: the Horse provides pace and the Tiger ferocity while the Dog watches the rear. If more 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. He’s the charmer as well as the Tweeter at dawn.

The Dog perhaps surprisingly, also mixes well with the gentle diplomatic Rabbit. The Rabbit schmoozes while the Dog ensures that her openness is not abused. He makes a wonderful bodyguard and middle manager. A Dog employer will generally 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 he sees the Dragon create with such apparent ease. Consider Trump’s man-crush on Dragon Vladimir Putin in this light. The Snake too; the Dog would resent the Horse as well, except that they are scrupulously loyal to their own team. And just as an aside, it’s a principle of yin and yang that opposites co-exist. So some Dogs will express these qualities in the omission rather than the observance. This may make some little sense of Donald Trump.

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 rigid. Those recent US Presidents in a downward progress of de-evolution bottoming out at Donald Trump, have been champions of stuck, male, white, wealthy privilege. Make no mistake: it may not be clear very soon, but the post-War dispensation in the form of the Fire Dog, is over. The smart Fire Dog has already become mentor and confessor. That’s a pursuit at which he can often excel. The shallow Dog of course may never see this.

The Dog will often have a strong spiritual agenda and if he has a blind spot it may be the 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. 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 her motto is “Do as you would be done by,” and she thinks it already is. Resentment is a trap that is so easy to fall into.

The Dog can work well with other Dogs and even 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, sometimes by complimentary delusions. Beware though: the yang Earth and the yin Water have to mix just right or it can all end in tears.

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. As for the unbalanced Fire Dog – it’s pretty much over. Change Horses, I should.

2025, Breezes, Hurricanes, Twisters,

The outlook for the Year of the Wood Snake.

Note: There are four (or five) Pillars in your ba zi, each with a different nuance. It is as unlikely that they are all ill-starred as it is that they are all

blessed by any given year. Examine the portents for each and perhaps use that as an indication of how to respond.

Dog

Yum San

Bonding Issues

As many women will attest, few men actually grow up. A decent percentage of women however, appear to. By growing up, I mean something like taking responsibility for our lives. A central aspect of this is absolving our parents for our poor choices. JK Rowling – not maybe the most authoritative reference – reckons that there is a statute of limitations on blaming our upbringing. It may be that for many of us, the first of our Luck or “Big Fate” Pillars is that time. One way of looking at those so-called Luck Pillars is that for many of us they chronicle the episodic blows that exhaust and disappoint as we age.

Yum San, your guiding Star this year represents a very particular kind of upset. I call it the “Bonding Star” though perhaps Unbonding might be more apt. It’s formed of the characters for Dragon and Neck which may be striking enough an image to explain it. It’s painful and it’s a worm hole you might fall into this year. Either way the year is one of transformation and evolution. Which is probably why this has arisen. Whether you’re 17 or 77, 2025 is an opportunity to grow up.

This may sound unfamiliar and you may have circumvented it but if it is to snare you, this is the year. This advice may be late, early or redundant but there it is in the stars. Forgive if you feel you bypassed it.

Bonding is the state of acting unselfconsciously, it is being who we are regardless of the company. In its pure state though it is how we come into the world, it is very rare. As the Dry the River song “Weights and Measures” goes “We are beasts of blame by nature.” And usually the blame is shuttlecocked between parent and child like a toxic hot potato. When it happens among Rats in a Rabbit Year (as in 2023 between Rats King William and his younger son Prince Harry) it is often bundled up with the so-called Ingratitude Penalty.

And it’s simple enough to exit; not easy, simple. It is as most ba zi work ultimately is, a question of forgiveness. Understanding and expediting forgiveness is the trick. Forgiveness is often misunderstood as a gracious response to misbehaviour. It’s not, I suggest. It’s an awareness that as Chuck Spezzano writes, you didn’t die and you hold the smoking gun. Karen Armstrong is brilliant on this also.

In a Snake year you’ll need anyway to be patient as its Yin Fire is not enough to move your Yang Earth. This may show up as weight gain if you’re not conscious but also a tendency to push those closest to you away. Best not to upset people by mistake.

March may bring a pay rise but it’s unlikely to be a year of great financial advance. I don’t suppose that will be your priority. 2024 may have been quite hard, the opposition of the Dragon will have made for longer hours of work than usual as well as a tighter friend group. Some key acquaintances may have moved away and you may now be tempted to join them. The Water Years of Pig, Rat & Ox will also have been harder on you than most and you find yourself reflecting a post-Covid world in something like a group ptsd, still slightly dazzled by daylight.

The configuration of April’s Dragon looks like a series of verbal confrontations. These aren’t your idea of a good time. And your habit – at least until last year – is to stand fast. You are in need of a better strategy. Think ahead, I should, perhaps during March when the Force is with you and consider both what you expect and what you want. Notice that it’s your choice. Notice that the logical extension is that nothing that affects you is someone else’s fault. To buy into that would be to sequentially – Fate Pillar by Fate Pillar – give away your agency. That is the process that leads to yum san but usually it seems indelible because its roots are so deep and ancient.

The Snake’s Yin Fire is not enough to fuel you. You are likely to be hard in all sorts of ways to move. And elementally the Yin Fire is in a sense your Mother: it’s where you come from and what you fall back on. It’s what is known as Pin Yan, indirect support. 2025 has that kind of feel for you, I expect. Receive, value and acknowledge it.

Your Hexagram for the Year expresses this: Mountain over Mountain. You move only when you are good and ready even though you may be constantly restless. So not a year of massive change but one of settling. Your mission is quite likely to include refurbishing your surroundings and improving the lives of those dependent upon you. Your ambitions probably take a back seat for now.

The Snake is all about truth, often not in a good way and you are about integrity. Your word is reliable and your opinion as inflexible as it is well considered. 2024 called for flexibility. This year doesn’t so much, it calls upon your natural strength – of being there and reliable when needed. And sticking to what you know to be sound standards, honourable behaviour and a diligent work ethic. We all know where we stand with you.

For some reason the stars suggest lawsuits this year. The Book of Changes consistently advises against litigation. But whether this is actual courtroom stuff, the odds are that you are standing for a principle. Since by the way, all that comes through to me is metaphor and my job is simply to find the level of application, we may be dealing with an entirely different scenario with a similar dynamic.

You win. They say that luck at such things entails being unlucky in love but in 2025 lady Dogs at least are apt to find love. If you have it already, it may deepen. There are particular places on the compass to activate for either intention this year.

The Chinese guys plot a self-indulgence Star for you this year. Enjoy. I’d expect you to stretch out with family and friends. I doubt you’ll make many more friends but you’ll give as you always do to those you have already, only more so. The Dog is a byword for loyalty and faith. When you stick, you stick. Pretty good idea.

Lesson: Opening up and inching forward.

Best Months: February, March, June, October

Worst Months: April, July, September.

Theme: A sense of movement

Hexagram: 52 Gen Everything stops.

Health: = Wealth: = Relationship: ☺

Where to find help: Tigers, Horses, other Dogs, Rabbit.

Who should I be careful with: Dragons, Roosters.

This forecast is prepared by comparing your own Chinese year Animal with the Wood Snake of 2025. Your Year Animal is just one of the four that make up your Ba Zi or Four Pillars of Destiny. A fully-drafted ba zi can indicate possible futures and probable pasts as well as moments of decision. Knowing these moments can heal and prevent heartbreak as well make success and happiness more easily achievable. What is a ba zi?

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