Year of the Snake
The Snake is the sixth animal, the one that hid on the Horse's hoof and startled it at the line. The popular tradition reads it as wise, private and elegant.
What the postcard says
The popular reading of a Snake year birth is intelligence held quietly: a deep thinker, a good judge of people, a taste for the refined, and a patience that waits for the right moment rather than the first one. Snakes are read as intuitive, self-possessed and hard to read, the ones who knew the answer and did not say so.
The honest shadow in the same tradition is the Snake's suspicion: jealousy, a possessiveness in love, and a coldness that can be cruel when crossed. The tradition does not pretend the elegance comes without the venom.
The years, the hours and the month
Every twelfth year is a Snake year, but not the same Snake: the year's stem changes each time, so the Snake years are 1953 (Yin Water), 1965 (Yin Wood), 1977 (Yin Fire), 1989 (Yin Earth), 2001 (Yin Metal), 2013 (Yin Water), 2025 (Yin Wood) and 2037 (Yin Fire). 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, 09:00 to 11:00, and one month of every year.
Inside a Four Pillars chart the Snake is the branch Si, whose element is Fire and whose hidden stems are Yang Fire, Yang Earth and Yang Metal. It rules the two hours after nine in the morning and the first month of summer. In a chart it reads as Fire with Metal hidden inside it, which is why the tradition calls it the furnace; 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 2013 and 2025 are both Snakes, 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 Snakes twelve years apart share a branch and differ in their year's element, Yin Water against Yin Wood, 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 Snake?
1953, 1965, 1977, 1989, 2001, 2013, 2025 and 2037, each beginning at Li Chun, around 4 February, and each with a different element: 1989 (Yin Earth), 2001 (Yin Metal), 2013 (Yin Water), 2025 (Yin Wood) and 2037 (Yin Fire). The calculator works the year out from the date rather than from the year number, so a January birth is placed correctly.
Is the Snake compatible with the Rooster and the Ox?
The popular tradition groups the Snake with the Rooster and the Ox, 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.