Sheep 2017
Who is a Sheep?
Years: 1943, 1955, 1967, 1979, 1991, 2003, 2015.
Month*: July
Hour: 01:00 pm – 03:00 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.
Skip to: Sheep in Fire Rooster Year.
What is a Sheep?
Idealistic, yin earth, not the top getter-onner, the Sheep has well-meant judgements about everybody which can sometimes keep her stuck in first gear. For the unbalanced Sheep (July birthday and/or mid-afternoon birth) ambition and foolishness are pretty much the same thing. On the other side of the fence the grass is not greener; it’s actually brown on both sides. The balanced Sheep though, as well as being an expert judge of people, knows exactly what matters and is not easily diverted from it. Metal Sheep Rupert Murdoch as an example, may be all sorts of deluded but not in the above regard.
Conversely, the value of caution and conservatism is often clear in Sheep relationships. The most obvious of these is with the extrovert, spontaneous Horse whose sidekick the Sheep often ends up being. With the Sheep beside him, the Horse’s fun may be a little less riotous but he will also stay out of serious trouble. The Horse and Sheep of 1978 and 1979 for instance, are often a tag team who go out drinking and clubbing together. The Sheep may stand back in amazement at the Horse’s daring but she is there both to pick up the pieces and to take advantage when these risks bear fruit. The Horse dances on tables, the Sheep buys the drinks. This of course illustrates a psychological truth about the Sheep: the risk-taking they shy away from is exactly what attracts them most. What often follows also is that a desirable partner, on the rebound from a Horse, finds a steadier proposition in the Sheep.
Anyway, placed as you are between the Horse and the Monkey in the Chinese Zodiac, you understand the tricky Monkey. There is generally a certain mutual wariness but this unorthodox team is capable of magic. Consider btw the eternal rectangle of Monkeys Wendi Deng and Jerry Hall, Horse Mick Jagger and Sheep Rupert Murdoch. Perhaps throw in Horse Cherie and Snake Tony Blair to make it interesting.
The Sheep also affiliates easily with the Pig and the Rabbit. This is a very domestic alliance. The Chinese ideograph for home is a Pig under a roof and the average Rabbit would also happily stay home 24/7 if allowed to. The Rabbit is the diplomat and mixer while the Pig who is inherently versatile, takes up the slack of whatever jobs there are to perform. The Sheep makes things safe. She will have ensured for instance that there are no mutually sworn enemies on the guest list. The typical Sheep is an ideal social secretary as well as a master resolver of conflict. Psycho-therapy is among the appropriate career paths.
The Sheep is passionate, representing the yin or feminine side of sexuality, but whether male or female, he is more seducer than chatter up.
Perhaps most interestingly, the Sheep forms a team with the Dog, the Dragon and the Ox. Individually each of these three is somewhat intimidating to her but when this group gathers, the Sheep’s unique gifts become essential: drawing flexibility from the Dog, humility from the Dragon and cheerful co- operation from the autocratic Ox. Above all she ensures peace among them. Even if all she does is make the coffee, the Sheep is a comforter of the insecure. She understands that most barkers never bite and that aggression is simply inverted fear. When in doubt, join.
Sheep in Fire Rooster Year.
Stars include: yeung yan, hong yim, qua suk.
The A Team
The Sheep traditionally experiences loss in a Rooster year. The feng shui preventative btw is to make a donation to charity. Sometimes it’s the other way round. The solution for each is to choose battles wisely and the Rooster is better at this than you are.
You are known as the team player, so any loss this year is likely to be of membership or of members. Because you are also known as an idealist there may be some infringement upon your beliefs or standards. Even more likely is that this turns out to be a reclusive kind of year for you. Sabbaticals for Sheep (like Michael Gove and Rupert Murdoch for instance) will be commonplace.
You see the ambient energy of the Year of the Turkey is pretty shameless. It’s a year of small enmities and slights, at odds with your own high standards of behaviour. You wouldn’t want to get too wound up in that. You may right now be in deep despair at the tawdriness of your fellow man. But as a Sheep you have a nose for grouping. You may already be investigating political and philanthropic groups to join. This would be a constructive use of your disdain. Withdrawal wouldn’t. And this dynamic is as likely to be domestic as global.
As you know, in order to hold groups together, great tolerance is required. This is usually a strength but 2017’s yeung yan (an angry star, known for aggressive assertion) may stretch your patience. Now is the time for forgiveness. It’s on the cards that more than the usual proportion of the old, the vulnerable and the infirm will pass over. The numbers will – as ever – be highest at the Solstices. In mid-Winter it’s so easy to simply slip between the worlds and at the height of the Fire in June, the challenge to hold on may be too great. Being as sensitive as you are, you have a great deal to give to the dying; hospice or counselling work indeed may get you out of yourself.
Meanwhile if as is likely you have a chronic grievance with those who managed your upbringing, forgiveness is called for. Not because they screwed you up but because they didn’t. How else could forgiveness work? As JK Rowling said, there is a statute of limitations on blaming our parents. I write as the father of six.
If you don’t have the stomach for forgiveness or ministering to the lost, at least aim to discipline yourself to be at one with yourself three times a day – first thing in the morning, in your own hour between 1 and 3pm and last thing at night. The world will be so much less of a mystery if you’re simply up to date with yourself. This will help to steer you through this difficult year. The Sheep has the gift of being able to withdraw into alpha-rhythms in the middle of the hurly burly. Day dreaming if you like – but you know that you gain enormous clarity and purchase this way.
Yeung yan along with qua suk and hong yim suggest that intimate relationships approach breaking point this year also. Peace can best be made under the influence of the Pig (November) and Rabbit (March). A therapeutic holiday either to the East or North West may settle this passing terror. Hong yim however means that the central problem is your unexpressed dissatisfaction not theirs.
When you digest it, the easiest response to the above is guilt. Don’t. Guilt, at the risk of over-simplification, is only the freight we pay to repeat the offence; learn, make amends, move on. And don’t take on too much this year. You carry so much for others. Lay, as the saying goes, your burden down. You may discover that there’s no need for anyone to pick it up. The Sheep’s strength is particularly served by knowing when to stop. Pace yourself.
Readers Digest version: be discerning rather than sentimental.
What’s to be done about it: join discerningly or love your own company.
Amulet: None.
Feng Shui advice: seek the Wood in the East.
Helpful places: East.
Helpful times: March, June, July, November.
Health: care of lungs, skin, mouth, guts.
Money: assets more likely to shrink than swell.
Relationship: value what’s valuable.