The dragon

The dragon is the fifth of the twelve earthly branches, and the only mythical creature among the twelve animals.

Its place in the cycle

Phase: earth
Season: late spring — the passage into summer
Double hour: 7 a.m. to 9 a.m.
Direction: east-southeast
Linked with: rat and monkey — the water group of three
Facing: the dog

Like the goat, the dog and the ox, the dragon stands at the end of a season, and therefore carries the earth phase — what mediates between two states.

What tradition hands down

An effect on other people, self-confidence, generosity, a pull towards wide horizons — and the other side of it: overestimating oneself, impatience with anything small-scale, difficulty with taking a subordinate place.

In East Asia the dragon stands for good fortune and imperial power; the number of births rises measurably in dragon years. It is, as with the fire horse, an example of an astrological idea producing social reality.

There is no most powerful animal sign

Chinese astrology has no ranking of the branches. What it has is the relationship between the five phases in a given chart: which one dominates, which one is missing, what feeds and what holds back.

A dragon in a chart short of earth is in quite a different position from one in a chart already dominated by earth. The strength lies in the relationship, not in the animal.

Checking the start of the year

The animal changes between late January and mid-February — dragon years included.