Year of the Horse
The Horse is the seventh animal, the one that would have come sixth without the Snake. The popular tradition reads it as free, energetic and sociable.
What the postcard says
The popular reading of a Horse year birth is movement: energy, independence, a love of travel and of company, and a warmth that makes friends easily. Horses are read as cheerful, quick and hard-working when the work is their own choosing, the ones who cannot stay in a room for long.
The honest shadow in the same tradition is the Horse's impatience: a restlessness that drops things half done, a temper that flashes, and a self-centredness that comes from always following its own head. The tradition says the Horse runs best when it has decided to.
The years, the hours and the month
Every twelfth year is a Horse year, but not the same Horse: the year's stem changes each time, so the Horse years are 1942 (Yang Water), 1954 (Yang Wood), 1966 (Yang Fire), 1978 (Yang Earth), 1990 (Yang Metal), 2002 (Yang Water), 2014 (Yang Wood), 2026 (Yang Fire) and 2038 (Yang Earth). The year turns at Li Chun, around 4 February, not on 1 January and not at the new moon festival, so a January birth belongs to the year before. The branch also rules two hours of every day, 11:00 to 13:00, and one month of every year.
Inside a Four Pillars chart the Horse is the branch Wu, whose element is Fire and whose hidden stems are Yin Fire and Yin Earth. It rules the two hours round noon and the month of the summer solstice. In a chart it reads as Fire at full strength, the sun at midday; the animal name says none of that, and the element does.
The year animal is the postcard; your day master is the reading
Two people born in 2014 and 2026 are both Horses, and the tradition reads them differently before it reads them alike.
The animal is the branch of the year pillar, one of eight characters in a Four Pillars chart, and the tradition reads it last. It reads the day master first: the stem of the day of birth, which is the self the rest of the chart is weighed against, and which the year animal says nothing about. Two Horses twelve years apart share a branch and differ in their year's element, Yang Wood against Yang Fire, and differ in every other pillar; the postcard is true, and it is the smallest true thing on the card.
We calculate the whole chart, so the animal is the first thing you see and the day master is the second, and the reading is built on the second. The ten day masters have their own pages in this library, and the calculator says which one is yours.
About 60 seconds · the pillars need your date, time and place · the year animal is the first thing you will see
Questions people ask
Which years are the Horse?
1942, 1954, 1966, 1978, 1990, 2002, 2014, 2026 and 2038, each beginning at Li Chun, around 4 February, and each with a different element: 1990 (Yang Metal), 2002 (Yang Water), 2014 (Yang Wood), 2026 (Yang Fire) and 2038 (Yang Earth). The calculator works the year out from the date rather than from the year number, so a January birth is placed correctly.
Is the Horse compatible with the Dog and the Tiger?
The popular tradition groups the Horse with the Dog and the Tiger, the three branches four apart, and calls the grouping harmonious. That is the postcard's compatibility, two characters out of the sixteen a real pair comparison reads, and it says nothing about the day masters the tradition actually compares. The two-person report reads both charts in full.
I was born in January or February. Which animal am I?
The year turns at Li Chun, around 4 February, so a birth before it belongs to the year before, whatever the calendar says. In some years the festival falls before Li Chun and in some after, which is why two sources can disagree; the pillars follow the solar term, and so does the calculator.
We read charts for pattern and coherence, not prediction. Nothing here tells you what will happen, and nothing here tells you who you are; it shows a structure and leaves the judgement with you.