Rooster

Meaning

The Rooster is the tenth of the twelve animals, the animal of the branch You: Metal, yin, the west, sunset and the heart of autumn, the month of the harvest brought in. The rooster keeps time, calling up the day, and the tradition reads in it order, punctuality and the courage to say what is so: a Han dynasty book gave it five virtues, culture in its crest, valour in its spurs, courage in its fighting, kindness in calling others to share its food, and trustworthiness in never missing the dawn.

Ulune’s portrait reads it as observant, frank and hard-working: it notices every detail and says what it thinks; proud of doing things well, it is punctual, organised and dependable. Its gifts are precision, honesty, diligence and courage. What the tradition asks it to watch is the sharpness of its eye: perfectionism, and criticism of others and of itself.

Its branch is pure Metal, the harvest gathered, sorted and weighed, and the Rooster is read as the one who puts things in order once the work is done: accounts kept, tools cleaned, a table laid with care. Its phase gives it clarity and a sense of what is fair, and its season, the equinox, a feeling for balance.

In practice

• As the year animal, the Rooster is how others see a person and the generation they share: those born from Lichun 2017 to Lichun 2018 are Fire Roosters, from Lichun 2029 Earth Roosters.
• As the inner, true and secret animal: as the month animal, Ulune reads the Rooster’s sense of order inside, high standards and a need to get things right; as the day animal, a partner frank, dependable and attentive to detail, who needs honesty and to be appreciated; as the hour animal, someone who keeps lists and plans, and an exacting eye on themselves.
• The five Roosters: the Wood Rooster is warm-hearted and fair, the Fire Rooster the most spirited, a born organiser, the Earth Rooster the most thorough, the Metal Rooster the Rooster twice over, exacting and honest, the Water Rooster the most diplomatic. Wood came in 1945 and 2005, Fire in 1957 and 2017, Earth in 1969 and comes in 2029, Metal in 1981, Water in 1993.
• Its relations: the Rooster’s allies are the Ox and the Snake, its trine of Metal; its partner in harmony is the Dragon. It clashes with the Rabbit, harms the Dog, forms a destruction with the Rat, and meets itself in a self-punishment.
• In time: the Rooster’s own years return every twelve, 2029 and 2041; a Rabbit year such as 2035 is its clash year; the Dragon, Ox and Snake years are its friendly ones.

Across traditions

• In Japan the Rooster is tori, the bird, or niwatori; in Korea dak; in Vietnam gà, of the branch Dậu. In Chinese, 雞 jī sounds close to 吉 jí, good fortune, and a rooster on a rock wishes a household well.
• In France the Gallic rooster is a national emblem, born of a Latin pun, gallus being both a rooster and a Gaul, and weathercocks crown church steeples across Europe, the bird of vigilance and of the dawn.
• Western astrology gives the Rooster’s eye for detail to Virgo, where the Sun stands as the Rooster’s month begins, and its sense of balance to Libra, which opens at the equinox in the middle of that month.

Origin and history

The Rooster is the animal of You in Wang Chong’s Lunheng, in the 1st century, which says that You is Metal and its creature the fowl. Han Ying’s Han Shi Waizhuan, in the 2nd century BC, already praised the rooster’s five virtues, and the bird held a place in Chinese life as the clock of the farm long before mechanical clocks: the double hour of You, at sunset, is when hens go to roost.

BaZi’s classics read the branch You, pure Metal and a Peach Blossom branch, rather than the Rooster itself. The Rooster’s portrait as it is known now, the frank, precise and hard-working perfectionist, is that of popular books of the 20th century in Chinese, English and French, such as Theodora Lau’s Handbook of Chinese Horoscopes (1979).

How Ulune calculates it

The Rooster is the branch You: a year, month, day or hour whose pillar’s branch is You is a Rooster. Ulune counts the Rooster year from Lichun and gives the other answer when Chinese New Year would differ; the Rooster month runs from Bailu, about 8 September, to Hanlu in early October, and holds the autumn equinox; the Rooster hour runs from 17:00 to 19:00 on true solar time. On Ulune’s wheel the Rooster stands at the west, three quarters of a turn clockwise from the Rat. Its portraits, with its five phases and its places, are Ulune’s own texts, written from what popular books commonly say.

Correspondences