The Monkey in the Year of the Wood Snake of 2025

Monkey Pic by @elliespinelli

Who is a Monkey?

Years: 1944, 1956, 1968, 1980, 1992, 2004, 2016.
Month*: August
Hour: 15.00-17.00

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. I can let you know this too.

What is a Monkey?
The image of the Three Wise Monkeys, See No Evil, Hear No Evil, and Speak No Evil is a reasonable summary of the qualities of the yang Metal Monkey, a particularly quirky primate. This is typically someone who shrinks from deep involvement. In elemental terms, this often amounts to too much yang Metal. What is meant by yang Metal essentially is precision and hence competition. Often the Monkey is so competitive he dare not enter the race.

As well as competitive, the Monkey is typically charming, loveable, dextrous, logical, quick witted and exact. The balanced Monkey uses these qualities constructively and in the service of his fellow man. The unbalanced Monkey (with say an August birthday in the late afternoon) does not clean up behind himself. He is in short a monkey.

The Monkey is often the most acquisitive as well as the gentlest beast but he is above all, competitive. In the extreme this means warfare. In its milder forms it is the ruthless competition that involves the belief that another’s gain is our loss. This is a (painful) mistake. It’s what leads to steroid abuse in athletics and ballet dancing in the Premiership penalty box. A Water Monkey like Spurs’ Son Heung-Min may learn this lesson early; it’s what makes him focus on goals rather than adulation. Pretty much all Monkeys subscribe to this delusion unless they learn not to through hard experience.

As you’d expect, the Monkey’s pitfall is frivolity. If he can’t win he takes the Mickey. Their natural allies however are the more ponderous Rat and Dragon. This is a pretty heavy-duty grouping, perhaps the most powerful in the Chinese Zodiac. Dominant Rats and egotistical Dragons are not, as a rule a bundle of laughs; the Monkey however often is. And together these three get stuff done; so many big revolutions including those of ideas involve this team. Many years of revolution (1776, 1848, 1944, 1956, 1968 & many more) are Monkey years.

2016 of course, the Year of Trump, M.A.G.A. and Brexit, was a Fire Monkey. As was hapless short-lived British PM Theresa May (born 1956, sixty years earlier) who may well not have entirely taken on the life lessons of the Monkey.

Monkey for sure is Karen Armstrong author of a History of God, founder of the Charter for Compassion and arguably the most important thinker of the 21st Century. This is a Monkey who has learned to speak no evil while seeing much. If you want to understand forgiveness, the heart of all healing, read Armstrong.

The Monkey also tends to understand the mechanical: engines and systems; he is the grease Monkey. He often also understand maths, science and argument and so is suited very often to a career in engineering or the law, also accountancy. Unbalanced, he neglects all of the above. The Monkey month of August spans Leo and Virgo and to see him as a hybrid of Virgo control and Leo passion is not far from the truth.

When the Tiger and the Snake meet the Monkey there is trouble. The Monkey both co-operates with and fights the Snake. The presence of the Tiger pushes this competition over the edge. Keep these three apart. The Monkey must take care to mind her p’s and q’s every February (the month of the Tiger) and every May (the month of the Snake). Also a Tiger Day in the Monkey Month is a day to stay off the roads; both Animals are about assertion and travel and of opposing Elements (yang Wood & yang Metal) and it may be uncomfortably warm.

So that’s the Monkey: argumentative practical, mischievous and so competitive he can withdraw altogether. But you knew that already didn’t you?

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.

Monkey

Goo San Tin Yute Gip Sat,

Celibacy Nobleman Helper Delay at best.

Fire Penalty Amulet

Your relationship with the Snake is complicated. Technically you are both “Secret Friends” – orthodox advice this year is for each of us to wear a Monkey amulet to stay on the right side of the Snake – and a “Break Up”.

Because of this they are for each other the shoulder to cry on as well as the cause of the upset. When they meet (or cohabit) the rule is that they combine to make Water. This means tears but also much deeper communication than either is comfortable with.

As a Monkey you may have the knack of making friends quickly. You’ll tend not to keep them though.This is an asset in sales: the Monkey who is your best friend for twenty minutes while they sell you a car is a sought after employee. But that quality is not so great necessarily as a life skill.

But….bless any Monkeys married to Snakes this year. Or any year. In 2025 the Snake is in charge and Monkeys who forget that are in for trouble. Much mayhem can be sidestepped by a Monkey whose technical nous makes them indispensable.

The Monkey along with the Snake, the Tiger and the Pig is one of the so-called Terminals or Stations of the Chinese Zodiac. If they are balanced events move smoothly. If not there are foul-ups. This applies especially to transport and movement. I recommend that both Monkeys and Tigers stay off the road in August, when at the time of the Hungry Ghosts, slight heat may be enough to make for road rage and the like.

Although for most of us this an unsettled year, there is purpose in most of the movement. As Thom Gunn wrote in The Sense of Movement, “One is always nearer by not keeping still.” Horses best ignore this but it’s helpful to the Monkey who is often keen to get on to the next thing.

On the face of it this is a year of great opportunity for the Monkey. The Metal within you represents power and resonates with the same but better concealed quality in the Snake. It may call for ingenuity but then that’s your middle name isn’t it? Your sense of humour is at its most seductive and your technical skill peaking about now. What do you want to do with this power?

You’re already likely to be finding that your grasp can catch up with your reach. Several life-changing breaks are in view. 2025 may be the most important year of your life in terms of achieving your life goals. Enlist your team mates Rat and Dragon. Don’t worry if they intimidate, these are your co-creators not necessarily, bosom buddies. Another way to look at this is to adopt the non-linear thinking of the Dragon and the strategic methods of the Rat along with your own analytical thinking and good humour. Rat is probably the most fortunate beast this year. Tag along.

And choose carefully; your gifts include rationality, musicality and humour and you’d be best advised to work at something that brings those things out. And this year you are both a Tin Yute Gwai Yan that is Nobleman Helper and Gip Sat or bringer of delay, to the Snake while Goo San means that love (at least romantic love) may be a complex issue this year: the relationship between the Yin Wood of the entire year and your own Yang Metal implies that that you’re unlikely to be lonely but equally unlikely to find your soul mate.

The key to maximising good fortune this year is getting out of the way. Gratitude is a big part of this. There is no contradiction between gratitude and self-respect. As one authority put it: “I give God all the credit, I just bank the money.” And for God read Higher Mind, Spirit or whatever.

One aspect of this is acknowledging the support you receive: partner and family of course and other visible empowerers but also the confluxes that make your success possible.

Seek and acknowledge Snakes, literal ones, those born in Snake years but also during May, the hours 9-11 in the morning and on Snake days for which you’ll need guidance or a Chinese Calendar.

The Snake’s take will be different to yours, coming as it does from a very different viewpoint. Incorporate it.

A Snake in your face may demand a level of frankness that is uncomfortable to you. Locating South East is a substitute and May will tend to take you to a point beyond which it will be hard to screw up anyway. Be sure to acknowledge.

You share Metal qualities with Ox as well as Snake. Ox needs a helping hand this year as they have in some sense fallen from grace. Include Oxen where possible and aim to start your working year early ie in January as the Ox Month will lend you a turbo boost in 2025.

The Metal you have in common means that precision and careful preparation are key to the authority by which Yang Metal is defined.

Downside: you may lose someone close to you this year. A colleague or student is most likely. This is not necessarily about mortality and it may already have happened. April or December are the most likely times.

The Wah Koi Star this year implies that your tendency to keep your own counsel and avoid groups – especially professional ones – needs to be tempered with a respect for standards. This is Metal again. The world is everywhere but inside your head. As the Me Without You song goes “You’re everyone else”. Stay curious and in the game.

Since you are the right-hand person of the Snake this is not a year of leisure travel. Snakes and Monkeys (as well as Tigers and Pigs) are the so-called stations of the Chinese Zodiac. When you meet Snakes & Tigers as you will at the very least in February, May and August there may be issues with visas, tickets and facilities. That’s the time to call in the Pig: again literal Pigs (born November, 9-11pm, certain years and days) to fix things. Locating or orienting North West may grease the wheels too.

Fire Penalty: February, May, August.

Lesson: Trust.

Best Months: April, May, October.

Worst Months: January.

Theme: Thoroughness

Hexagram: 64 Wei Ji Not Yet Complete.

Health: =/☺ Wealth: ☺ Relationship: ☺

Where to find help: other Monkeys, Dragons, Rats, some Snakes.

Who should I be careful with: Tigers, Pigs.

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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