The Horse, 7th sign of Chinese astrology

Meaning

The Horse holds the seventh place in the cycle of the twelve earthly branches. Its branch is named Wu, its element is Fire and its phase is Yang. Those three indications converge on the same thing: an energy turned outward, visible from far off, that spends itself instead of keeping itself in reserve.

The theme of the sign fits in one sentence: the movement that needs space to remain itself. The Horse is not defined by what it accumulates, but by what it crosses. Shut inside a frame that is too narrow, it does not become patient, it becomes nervous. Open the ground in front of it and the same energy goes straight back to work.

From there follow the traits tradition associates with it. Freedom first, which is less a whim than a working condition: it is not negotiated, it is provided for. Energy next, immediately available, able to launch in one morning what others would take weeks to prepare. Frankness, which says things before having weighed them and earns the Horse as many faithful allies as lasting misunderstandings. Impatience, the exact reverse of that speed: slow procedures and decisions that drag cost it more than they cost anyone else. Travel finally, in the literal as well as the figurative sense, as a way of airing out an existence that would suffocate in place.

One clarification is needed before going further. In a BaZi reading, the animal of the year is only one character out of eight. The Horse described here is a tonality, not a complete person: the month, day and hour pillars modulate its reach, and can go as far as contradicting it.

The branch and its element

The branch Wu is the seventh of the twelve. It carries Fire in its Yang phase, the fire that lights and is seen, not the one that smoulders.

Two stems are hidden in it, and they qualify the surface image. Ding, Fire Yin, comes first: it turns brilliance into continuous heat, a flame that lasts rather than flares. Ji, Earth Yin, comes next: it lays at the bottom of the sign a loose earth, a capacity to settle and to tend that the Horse’s speed almost always masks.

A point of vocabulary, because it trips up most of the tables available elsewhere. The Horse’s branch Wu (午) and the heavenly stem Wu, Earth Yang (戊), are romanised identically, but they are two distinct characters. The years 1978 and 2038 pair precisely the stem Wu with the branch Wu: that is not a repetition, it is Earth at the stem and Fire at the branch.

Alliances and clashes

Three relations structure the place of the Horse in the cycle.

The Liu He, the alliance of six, ties it to the Goat (branch Wei). The pair produces Fire: two unlike temperaments whose meeting nevertheless reinforces the element the Horse already carries.

The Liu Chong, the clash of six, sets it against the Rat (branch Zi), which faces it in the cycle. A clash is not a verdict, it is an axis of tension: two directions that overlap nowhere and that, put together, displace one another.

The San He, the affinity trine, gathers the Tiger, the Horse and the Dog, that is the branches Yin, Wu and Xu. The branch Yin is here a branch name, that of the Tiger, and is not to be read as the yin phase. This trio composes Fire, and the Horse holds the central position in it: it is the peak of the element the three branches form together.

These links are read between branches, never directly between two people. None of them is enough to conclude anything about a relationship: eight characters, not one.

Key facts

The nine Horse years closest to us, with the heavenly stem that opens each one.

Keywords

• freedom
• energy
• frankness
• impatience
• travel