The Rat
Who is a Rat?
Years: 1948, 1960, 1972, 1984, 1996, 2008.
Month*: November
Hour: 23.00-01.00am
* 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 Rat?
The Rat is yang water but with a hidden stem of yin water, the major water character of Chinese metaphysics. All water on this planet, unless interfered with by outside forces, is connected with and on the same level as all other water. This powerful idea may clarify the connection between water and communication.
Someone said that we have two ears and one mouth for a good reason: that we should listen twice as much as we speak. The issues relating to water are listening and speaking while keeping the ratios right. Often observation of this balance is not the calling of the Rat. Some of us are elected primarily to talk and the yang water of the Rat is signifies high level communication. The Rat is the talker of the Chinese Zodiac. As you know, an unbalanced or distressed Rat tends to clam up or run off at the mouth.
The Rat is supreme in the realm of ideas. It is said that when you can tell water from fire, you are a master. The blue of the sky at mid-summer, for instance is not water but fire. Who can identify this consistently? The Rat who is a planner and a plotter and a deep thinker, is the most likely candidate. He thinks ahead, sometimes to the detriment of his awareness of the present. This makes him a good chess player but not so great at poker. He is apt to be too controlling for games that require being open to good fortune. That sort of uncertainty is painful to your average Rat. He wants the credit and to get that he has to be in control.
In conversation you may find that the Rat second guesses in a very distinctive way: typically he gets his correspondent to commit utterly to a position before he states his. The Dragon and the Monkey, even the Ox, may find this reassuring but it drives the Horse and the Tiger wild and to some extent the Dog. It’s a very useful quality in a teacher but not everyone’s cup of tea in a collaborator.
Being big talkers and travellers, Rats are traditionally suited to work involving communication: sales, oratory and persuasion. In the collaboration with the Rabbit, Rooster and Horse that Derek Walters (himself a Rat) calls the Flowers of Love the Rat is the talker, the chatter-up, if you will, where the Rooster provides the glamour, the Horse the passion and the Rabbit the stamina. A Rat with these additional animals present is effortlessly successful and charismatic. The missing animals indicate his weaknesses. None of them of course is at ease alone in the company of the Rat.
An unbalanced Rat talks too much and listens selectively. A balanced one gets this exactly right; he is fascinating talker and a skilled listener. But the very deafness of the less gifted Rat can be a point of pride. Blessed nonetheless with an orderly mind and excellent retention, this Rat often considers his ignorance of a subject a reflection on the subject rather than himself. This sort of Rat needs to learn to value the convictions of others, especially if they are derived from premises he does not accept.
The Rat is a guardian, a watcher. Sometimes he is self-appointed and the unbalanced Rat has a particular blindness that leads him to believe that his opinion is an absolute. This is more accentuated and less well-informed in his partner the Ox in what some call the House of Creativity and Cleverness. The relationship between the Ox and the Rat is less that of partners than of pupil and tutor but the Ox can be a particularly obdurate learner, sometimes drawing conclusions to which he is not entitled and sticking like a limpet to any conclusion he can justify. In these circumstances the Ox is not so much partner or indeed student of the Rat as tormentor.
A very conscious Rat can make good use of this blindness to the value of other people’s positions. He is likely to be able to explain things that baffle others and to derive laws from this gift. To have no explanation however is to open himself up to chaos. If he knows this about himself he can master even the most abstract discipline.
The Rat is versatile and multi-talented though not as notably so as the Pig of whom he is often jealous or the Dragon who can baffle him despite their mutual affinity. Yang water can speak of profligacy with money. The Rat is a brilliant small businessman but often a poor tycoon. In the power triad with the Dragon and Monkey, the Rat may appear to overvalue the hands-on deftness of the Monkey because he finds the Monkey easier to control and may envy the Dragon his magic.
And it is this potential for envy that is the other big weakness of the Rat and lays him open to the Ingratitude Clash which comes up in 2011. The Rat, as we shall see who overcomes this, wins the loyalty of all.
Yang water ought also to speak of longevity in relationship but in this regard the unbalanced Rat can express the yin aspect of his nature; that is growing tired of relationships – professional or personal – long before their sell-by date or hanging on inappropriately to relationships he has long since made unviable. By the same token the Rat is an attentive parent but one who may have favourites. Accordingly the awakened Rat is absolutely evenhanded; quite a gift.
The Rat: Outlook for 2011
The relationship between the Rat and the Rabbit is called by some the Ingratitude Clash or the Uncivilised Punishment. Such a clash often takes the form of generational or other conflict. A Rat can be weary of dependents under the Rabbit just as a Rabbit can undervalue their heritage under the Rat (which may have been apparent in the last Rat year of 2008). Other manifestations include involvement in industrial action and political protest. As a rule the Rat represents the establishment in these situations and the Rabbit the upstart. If you have both in your ba zi – for instance you were born in March or around 5am – you are in for a dynamic 2011, characterised by a questioning of the value of what you are doing with your life. Watch out for this showing up from early March.
Metal Rat Hugh Grant, for instance, perhaps the most effortless romantic comedy lead since Cary Grant, has soft pedalled his career from 2008 onwards which may well mean that he is questioning the value of his body of work to date while Colin Firth who was born in the same month of the same year, appears to have taken the opposite tack: assuming more varied and “serious” roles. This year both will see the fruit of these decisions. This is the Ingratitude Clash in action. There are few greater contributions to the world than keeping it amused, by the way. As Kurt Vonnegut wrote: “We are here on earth to fart around and don’t let anybody tell you different.”
Although the Rat is the innovator of the Chinese Zodiac, the end of the Metal Rabbit may not for the above and other reasons, find you wealthier than before and relationships may suffer as you labour longer than you ought to at the coalface. Avoid self-justification especially the justification that involves self-sacrifice. Sacrifice is pretty much never genuine and nobody wins the competition to have the worst predicament.
Remember the Rat’s gift for communication. Make use of your intelligence and articulacy if you wish to prosper in this year of relative chaos. The harshness of the Metal Tiger is echoed in the Metal Rabbit in a more personal domestic way. The kind of opportunities that presented themselves last year will be followed by more subtle, less disruptive alternatives in 2011. Accordingly this is a good year to qualify in something that will support your progress in 2012 when the force will be with you in a more obvious way. Stay out of the South West unless you are a woman seeking romance. Work on appropriate balance between home and office, work and play, commitment and family. No excuses! If you need assistance being consistent, ally yourself with an Ox.