The Monkey

Who is a Monkey?

Years: 1944, 1956, 1968, 1980, 1992, 2004.
Month*: August
Hour: 15.00-17.00
* 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 Monkey?
The image of the Three Wise Monkeys, see no evil, hear no evil, and speak no evil is a mediaeval Japanese summary of the qualities of the metal Monkey who is yang metal and a particularly unbalanced primate. The image is of someone of course who shrinks from involvement. In elemental terms, this is about too much yang metal. What is meant by yang metal essentially is competition. Often the Monkey is so competitive he dare not enter the race. For many Monkeys, a man is an island. He is, like Hugh Grant’s character in About a Boy, “bloody Ibiza”.
As well as competitive, the Monkey is typically charming, loveable, dextrous, logical and quick witted and has a gift for precision. The balanced Monkey uses these qualities constructively and in the service of his fellow man. The unbalanced Monkey (with say an August birthday and a late afternoon hour) 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 mistake. It’s what leads to steroid abuse in athletics and ballet dancing in the penalty box; Metal Monkey John Terry can take a bow here. The metal Monkey may learn this lesson early; it’s what makes him gentle and all Monkeys subscribe to this delusion to a greater or lesser extent.
Just as you’d expect, the pitfall of the Monkey is frivolity. If he can’t win he takes the Mickey. The Monkey’s natural allies are the Rat and the Dragon. This is a pretty heavy-duty grouping, perhaps the most powerful in the Chinese Zodiac. The naturally dominant Rat and the egotistical Dragon are not, as a rule a bundle of laughs. But they get stuff done; most of the big revolutions of ideas involve this team. The influence of this trio spreads everywhere: Sigmund Freud perhaps the most influential thinker of the 20th Century, Michele Obama possibly the most influential woman in the world, Dragons. Even Jesus if you take AD32 as his birth year.* And somewhere in there if we delve deeply enough, we find unsung Monkeys and Rats making it happen. The Rat plots, the Monkey gets out there and competes. Probably St Paul was a Monkey, the man who sold Christianity to the world. Someone who is a 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.
The Monkey tends to understand engines; he is the grease Monkey. He also tends to understand maths, science and argument. He 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 them apart. So the Monkey should mind his p’s and q’s every February, the month of the Tiger and every May, the month of the Snake.
So that’s the Monkey: argumentative practical, mischievous, so competitive he can withdraw altogether. But you knew that already didn’t you?
* That’s up for debate of course but presumably he was a Capricorn anyway.

The Monkey: Outlook for 2011
In 2011 the mischief of the Monkey could backfire. You had better have made up for the pranks of 2009 and 2010 and you had better learn from them. Just as the Sheep’s karmic credit may be about to pay out, so some Monkeys are approaching the overdraft limit. The Monkey’s composition includes the por kwan or Broken Soldier, the tongue that can kill. Such power needs harnessing as harnessed, it is among the most powerful healing gifts. This is something Wood Monkey Karen Armstrong, selected by the Huffington Post as one of the most influential people of 2010, brings to the world.
The Monkey for whom this resonates as work in progress might consider those victories that left the wounded behind to suffer and those off-the-cuff remarks that drew blood. Make them right, mend fences. Turn this remarkable gift of focused eloquence around, use it with benevolence. Metal Monkey John Terry might consider that dallying with his team mates’ ex-partners is not so much a moral betrayal as poor captaincy. The Monkey makes so much difference; use that ability appropriately. You may choose to make enemies; don’t make them by mistake.
You are most likely to succeed if you travel, move house or change jobs and you may already be feeling wanderlust. Take longer holidays than you are used to. The Monkey is the accountant of the Chinese Zodiac but this year you could overestimate your resources; they are not inexhaustible and a really careless Monkey could exhaust them. You may not receive the benefit of the doubt when you need it unless you have learned the lessons you missed in 2009.
There is also a risk of your being conned. If so it will be by someone (most likely a Tiger) who has every right to a grudge against you. If you know who or what that is, settle it now and remember that you can’t con an honest man. There are major opportunities for formal learning if you have Rat or a Dragon elsewhere in your ba zi. A better year for planning than for pushing the boat out. The central counsel is to be sure your words leave no scars.