The goat

The goat is the eighth of the twelve earthly branches. It is also called the sheep — the Chinese character yáng stands for both animals, and translations have gone different ways. It is the same branch.

Its place in the cycle

Phase: earth
Season: late summer — the passage into autumn
Double hour: 1 to 3 p.m.
Direction: south-southwest
Linked with: rabbit and pig — the wood group of three
Facing: the ox

Like the three other branches at the end of a season — dragon, dog, ox — the goat carries the earth phase: what mediates, what stands between two states.

What tradition hands down

Agreeableness, receptiveness, an eye for form, a readiness to yield — and the other side of it: indecision, worry, difficulty with confrontation and with holding to a position.

The reputation of being the most difficult or the unluckiest sign persists stubbornly, and it is a popular attribution with no basis in the order of the calendar. In the interpretation it is not the animal that decides, but the relation of the five phases in the chart as a whole.

What the year animal is worth

The coarsest of the four pillars. Year, month, day and hour together make up the chart; the day pillar stands for the person themselves. The heavenly stem is part of it.

Checking the start of the year

Between late January and mid-February the animal changes.