Year of the Pig
The Pig is the twelfth and last animal, the one that stopped to eat and to sleep on the way. The popular tradition reads it as generous, easy-going and sincere.
What the postcard says
The popular reading of a Pig year birth is good nature: generosity, a love of comfort and of good company, a tolerance for other people's faults, and a sincerity that does not calculate. Pigs are read as kind, diligent when the work matters, and hard to anger, the ones who assume the best and are usually right to.
The honest shadow in the same tradition is the Pig's indulgence: a naivety that is taken advantage of, a laziness when nothing presses, and a difficulty saying no. The tradition keeps the generosity and the softness in the same animal.
The years, the hours and the month
Every twelfth year is a Pig year, but not the same Pig: the year's stem changes each time, so the Pig years are 1947 (Yin Fire), 1959 (Yin Earth), 1971 (Yin Metal), 1983 (Yin Water), 1995 (Yin Wood), 2007 (Yin Fire), 2019 (Yin Earth) and 2031 (Yin Metal). 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, 21:00 to 23:00, and one month of every year.
Inside a Four Pillars chart the Pig is the branch Hai, whose element is Water and whose hidden stems are Yang Water and Yang Wood. It rules the two hours after nine in the evening and the first month of winter. In a chart it reads as Water with Wood growing in it; 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 2007 and 2019 are both Pigs, 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 Pigs twelve years apart share a branch and differ in their year's element, Yin Fire against Yin Earth, 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 Pig?
1947, 1959, 1971, 1983, 1995, 2007, 2019 and 2031, each beginning at Li Chun, around 4 February, and each with a different element: 1983 (Yin Water), 1995 (Yin Wood), 2007 (Yin Fire), 2019 (Yin Earth) and 2031 (Yin Metal). The calculator works the year out from the date rather than from the year number, so a January birth is placed correctly.
Is the Pig compatible with the Rabbit and the Goat?
The popular tradition groups the Pig with the Rabbit and the Goat, 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.