The Chinese Zodiac and Western Astrology

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kristoff
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The Chinese Zodiac and Western Astrology

Post by kristoff »

I've seen a few different theories, but I believe that this is how the Chinese zodiac rightly fits onto the circle of signs:

Aries - yang air - horse
Taurus - yin metal - hare
Gemini - yang earth - dragon
Cancer - yin earth - rat
Leo - yang fire - ox
Virgo - yin wood - snake
Libra - yang metal - tiger
Scorpio - yin fire - ram
Sagittarius - yang water - boar
Capricorn - yin air - rooster
Aquarius - yang wood - monkey
Pisces - yin water - dog

I am aware that there are only 5 elements in Chinese astrology, but seeing that there are 12 animals, each with a yin and a yang, I think the sixth element got lost somewhere over the centuries.

After aligning the animals and elements as individual pieces to the astrological circle, I also think that the animals are paired up with the wrong elements in the traditional Chinese Zodiac. I wrote what I believe to be correct.

On the western end, this theory allows six elements instead of four with two signs per element.

https://element6.simdif.com/

The way that I came by my element and animal associations is by using the site http://www.turtleluck.com/main-elements/ . I read all the element descriptions: yang wood, yin fire etc. and I read some descriptions of the western sun signs and matched them up according to things they had in common. The air signs were left over, and when I looked at the description of Capricorn it mentioned a 'rarefied air' that is a signature to the sign. That rarefied air means high prestige. The sign is also the mid-heaven, and the heavens is associated with air. Finally, the rooster sign fit Capricorn through the animal's description on turtlelluck.com and through the method that I will describe further down in this post. It makes sense that the bird sign is an air sign. Similarly, it makes sense that the monkey sign is a tree sign in Aquarius! If you look at all the elements when on the circle, you will see that yang signs always oppose yang signs, and yin signs always oppose yin signs.

The animals were tricky. I was lucky enough to have 4 of them in the right position already so that I could discover a pattern that I used to place the rest of the animals and it lined up perfectly. Monkey lined up with a tree, the dragon lined up with the mountain which emphasizes hugeness as a major trait. Pig lined up with yang water and is famous in the saying "sweat like a pig." Sweat is yang water! All these intuitive associations were present after applying the method that I'll describe.

The four animals that I had correctly placed were: rat in cancer, ox in leo, tiger in libra, and hare in taurus. All the rest were incorrect. For the longest time, I had dog associated with Aquarius. At this point, I decided to look for inspiration in the Chinese Zodiac story of the Great animal race. This was the first time that I consulted the story. Luckily enough for me, the animals that I had correct were the first four finishers in the story of the race, and this revealed a pattern for the rankings of the animals in the story.

In the story the animals finished the race in this order from first place to last place: rat, ox, tiger, hare, dragon, snake, horse, ram, monkey, rooster, dog and pig.

The first part of the pattern is that when you take the planet exalted in the chosen sign, it represents the zodiac animal. For example, moon in taurus represents the rat! The reason being that rat is associated with cancer and the moon is the ruler of cancer. So in other words, the moon is the rat and it is exalted in taurus.

The second part of the pattern is that you start with the moon in taurus and, going clockwise, touch upon all the exalted planets in the signs. You will discover that the order of the planets are the same as the order of the rankings of the zodiac animals in the race. The planet that is associated with the animal determines the sign that is associated with the animal, sometimes in a definite manner and sometimes it narrows it down to a 50/50 about where the animal should be associated.

Like I said before, I was lucky to have the first four finishers of the race in the correct signs. So I just happened to notice that:rat ruled cancer, with the moon exalted in taurus.Going clockwise, the next exalted planet is the sun in aries. The ox was associated with leo, so the sun in aries represented the ox who placed second in the great zodiac race.The next exalted planet is venus in pisces. Venus rules two signs: taurus and libra. So, the next two animals to finish in the race would be associated with these two signs. The two animals were the tiger and the hare. I already had the tiger associated with libra and the hare associated with taurus.

This pattern made it clear to me that all I had to do was continue going clockwise and evaluate the exalted planet to see which animal belonged in the associated sign. All the rest of my animal placements were wrong up to this point. With the next exalted planet being mercury in aquarius, now gemini and virgo were on the table. The next animals in the rankings were dragon and snake. I had it narrowed down to 50/50 . Dragon would be either gemini, or virgo and snake would take the other sign. I looked at the element that I had associated with gemini and it was yang earth. This was symbolized by the mountain and was noted by hugeness. The hugest animal in the zodiac is the dragon. With this kind of reasoning and a good reading through of the sign, the element and animal description, I settled with dragon in gemini and this left snake to virgo. Snake in virgo fit well as the snake was described as a healer, and fast calculater. Both of these traits were of virgo.

The next planet was mars in capricorn. Mars also ruled two signs. The next animals were horse and ram. I settled on horse for aries and ram for scorpio.

Mars is exalted again in sagittarius, but I just skipped over that because it was already complete.

The next exalted planet is uranus in scorpio. The next animal is the monkey. This placed monkey to aquarius.

The next exalted planet is saturn in libra. Aquarius was already done, so only capricorn was left. The next animal was the rooster and this placed rooster in capricorn. The bird went to the heavens.

Mercury in virgo was already done with.

Neptune in leo was very specific to pisces, and the next animal was the dog, thus dog was associated with pisces.

Lastly was jupiter in cancer, the last animal was the boar and the only sign left was sagittarius.

Thank you.
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Re: The Chinese Zodiac and Western Astrology

Post by admin »

This is fascinating kristoff, and clearly thoroughly researched.

I have read only one source that correlates Chinese Astrology with Western Astrology: “The New Astrology” by Suzanne White. (1st Publication, 1986 by Macmillan London Limited) – clearly a simplified approach in comparison with your research.

However, in comparison with that of the link you gave:

Aries yang air horse
Taurus yin metal hare
Gemini yang earth dragon
Cancer yin earth rat
Leo yang fire ox
Virgo yin wood snake
Libra yang metal tiger
Scorpio yin fire ram
Sagittarius yang water boar
Capricorn yin air rooster
Aquarius yang wood monkey
Pisces yin water dog

...she has the following:

Rat – Yin; Horse – Yang; Ox – Yin; Goat/Ram – Yang; Tiger – Yang; Monkey – Yin; Cat?/Hare – Yin; Rooster – Yang; Dragon – Yang; Dog – Yin; Snake – Yang; and Pig/Boar – Yin.

Clearly she hasn’t delved as deeply as you have into this matter, and certainly neither have I. (I do have a fair understanding of the Chinese elements from studying acupuncture for several years, and Feng Shui for many years, but western astrology is obviously my main subject).

Your use of the planetary exaltations gives a whole new approach and perspective, and surely there is a ‘book’ in the making here.

Thanks for posting your exciting discoveries and ideas here. Very thought provoking !

Best,
Admin.

p.s. As visuals make for easier comprehension than words, is there any possibility that you could post an image of the circle as you have described it ?
"Don't let the illusions of your past or future rob you of the infiniteness of your present." [Unknown]
kristoff
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Re: The Chinese Zodiac and Western Astrology

Post by kristoff »

Thanks for your kind reply. Here is an image I drew up.

Image
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Re: The Chinese Zodiac and Western Astrology

Post by admin »

PERFECT !

Thank you. I'm sure this will pique the interest of others here.

Good Luck with your work on this, and I look forward very much to any further thoughts you develop about this subject.

Best,
Admin.
"Don't let the illusions of your past or future rob you of the infiniteness of your present." [Unknown]
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Re: The Chinese Zodiac and Western Astrology

Post by Pem »

Hello Kristoff
Quote
I am aware that there are only 5 elements in Chinese astrology, but seeing that there are 12 animals, each with a yin and a yang, I think the sixth element got lost somewhere over the centuries.
Unquote

I read with great interest your work on this subject in trying to correlate
chinese astrology with western astrology.

Could I ask you out of interest : What do you think could be the 6th Element that got lost ?

(Fire, Earth,Water,Wood,Metal,Air - are the 6)

Regards
Pem
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http://www.astrologersforum.com/forum/v ... =66&t=2870
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Re: The Chinese Zodiac and Western Astrology

Post by admin »

In Acupuncture Theory, ‘Metal’ is equated with ‘Aether’ – which is it seems however, more relevant to later “...ancient and mediaeval science..” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aether_(c ... l_element) and apparently ultimately equated with ‘Air’.

The ‘6th Element’ in the periodic table is Carbon, which is the “... 15th most abundant element in the Earth’s crust, and the fourth most abundant element in the universe...”, and is the basis of all ‘organic matter’.

But this is getting into areas in which I have no knowledge, and none of this answers the question of how the 6th Element was ‘lost’. Nonetheless, I thought I’d throw it into the mix just in case something here triggers some connection.

Admin.
"Don't let the illusions of your past or future rob you of the infiniteness of your present." [Unknown]
kristoff
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Re: The Chinese Zodiac and Western Astrology

Post by kristoff »

I studied Acupuncture for a year, though I didn't complete my studies. I still have a book that mentions a 6th element in the history of element theory.

The Foundations of Chinese Medicine by Giovanni Maciocia says on page 20:

Some of the earliest references to elements do not call them 'elements' at all; instead an element is a 'seat of government'... and they were at one point considered to be six rather than five. They were in fact called either the 'Five Abilities' or the 'Six Seats of Government'. A book from the Warring States period says: 'Heaven sends the Five Abilities and the people use them. And it also says: 'The Six Seats of Government... are Water, Fire, Metal, Wood, Earth and Grain. Thus 'Grain' was considered to be the sixth 'element'.

The earliest references to elements mention a 6th element. Granted, it was called 'grain' instead of 'air' as i have proposed, but there were six of them. Consider also that all things have a yin and a yang. Then notice that Qi is always yang. Well qi is best translated into english as 'air' or 'energy'. We have an air sign in Western Astrology. It is just another element like fire, water and earth. So if we just apply the same principle of yin and yang to the Western Air, we get Yin Air and Yang Air. That equates to a Yin Qi and a Yang Qi. So the sixth element is none other than Qi itself. Except now the law of yin and yang are applied to it and it joins the other five elements.

Edit: Also, Aries rules vitality. Your vitality is determined by your qi, so it takes the Qi sign.
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Re: The Chinese Zodiac and Western Astrology

Post by kristoff »

Also, on the topic of Acupuncture, I associate Aries and Yang Air to the Triple Energizer Meridian and the organ is the Trachea because it is hollow and for air.

Capricorn and Yin Air; those I associate with the Pericardium meridian and the brain as the organ. Chinese Acupuncture and Moxibustion by Cheng Zinnong says on page 43: "The brain is the organ of spirit, consciousness and thinking. Capricorn is strongly associated with the spirit. Also the brain's position in the heavens of the body is like the Midheaven.

These two organs are previously unassigned as primary yin and yang organs. They are suitable to go with the air signs.
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Re: The Chinese Zodiac and Western Astrology

Post by kristoff »

Yang air is Qi. Yin air is aether.

Aether is the material that fills the region of the universe above the terrestrial sphere. That refers to the midheaven and Capricorn. Cancer on the bottom of the astrological wheel, opposite capricorn, is the terrestrial sphere. Aether is also known as spirit, and is associated with gravity. The MC/ IC axis is the gravitational axis. Aether is the space between all matter. The joints are the spaces between the bones and are associated with capricorn.

https://www.buildingbeautifulsouls.com/ ... c-meaning/

Perhaps aether is the other half of Qi. Aether could be Yin Qi.
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Re: The Chinese Zodiac and Western Astrology

Post by kristoff »

In Plato's Timaeus (58d) speaking about air, Plato mentions that "there is the most translucent kind which is called by the name of aether (αίθηρ)".[9]

- https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aether_ ... l_element)
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