Tiger

Meaning

The Tiger is the third of the twelve animals, the animal of the branch Yin: Wood, yang, the first month of spring that opens at Lichun, and the hour before dawn. In China the tiger is the king of the beasts, and children learn to see the character 王, king, in the stripes on its forehead; it guards, it protects, and it fears nothing, which is what the tradition reads in those born under it.

Ulune’s portrait reads it as brave, magnetic and independent: it acts on its convictions and takes the side of those weaker than itself; warm and generous, it lives intensely and loves a challenge. Its gifts are courage, enthusiasm, a sense of justice and a natural authority. What the tradition asks it to watch is the heat of its spirit: impulsiveness and restlessness, and a temper that flares and fades.

Its branch gives the Tiger its season. Yin opens the year, the moment the thaw begins and life is drawn out of the ground, and the Tiger is read as the animal of beginnings that need courage: the first step into the open, the cause taken up before others dare. Its phase is Wood, growth and drive, and inside its branch Fire is born, the warmth of the summer to come.

In practice

• As the year animal, the Tiger is how others see a person and the generation they share: those born from Lichun 2022 to Lichun 2023 are Water Tigers, from Lichun 2034 Wood Tigers.
• As the inner, true and secret animal: as the month animal, Ulune reads the Tiger’s courage inside, a need for challenge and a refusal to be caged; as the day animal, a partner passionate and protective, who needs room to roam; as the hour animal, a heart that burns for causes and adventures it does not always show.
• The five Tigers: the Wood Tiger leads by bringing people along, the Fire Tiger blazes and dares, the Earth Tiger weighs a risk before taking it, the Metal Tiger sets high goals and goes straight at them, the Water Tiger reads people well and moves when the time is right. Wood came in 1974, Fire in 1986, Earth in 1998, Metal in 2010, Water in 2022, and Wood again in 2034.
• Its relations: the Tiger’s allies are the Horse and the Dog, its trine of Fire; its partner in harmony is the Pig, a bond that also counts a destruction. It clashes with the Monkey, harms the Snake, and belongs to the ungrateful punishment with the Snake and the Monkey.
• In time: the Tiger’s own years return every twelve, 2022 and 2034; a Monkey year such as 2028 is its clash year; a Horse year such as 2026 is an allied one, as are the Dog’s and, in harmony, the Pig’s.

Across traditions

• In Japan the Tiger is tora; in Korea horangi, the beloved tiger of folk painting, often shown with a magpie and gently mocked; in Vietnam hổ or cọp, of the branch Dần.
• The White Tiger of Chinese astronomy and Feng Shui, the emblem of the west and of autumn, is another tiger: a group of seven lunar mansions, unrelated to the zodiac’s Tiger, which belongs to the east-north-east and to spring.
• In Europe the lion plays the part the tiger plays in China, the king of beasts on coats of arms; Western astrology’s Leo shares the Tiger’s pride, warmth and courage.

Origin and history

The Tiger is the animal of Yin in Wang Chong’s Lunheng, in the 1st century, which says that Yin is Wood and its creature the tiger. Long before the zodiac, the tiger was a guardian: Ying Shao’s Fengsu Tongyi, about 195, records that tigers were painted on gates to keep the household safe, and tiger-headed shoes and caps for small children carried the same wish into modern times.

BaZi’s classics read the branch Yin, where Jia prospers and Fire is born, rather than the Tiger itself. The Tiger’s portrait as it is known now, the brave and generous rebel, 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 Tiger is the branch Yin: a year, month, day or hour whose pillar’s branch is Yin is a Tiger. Ulune counts the Tiger year from Lichun, which is also when the Tiger month begins: the first solar month of every year is a Tiger month, from about 4 February to Jingzhe in early March. The Tiger hour runs from 03:00 to 05:00 on true solar time. On Ulune’s wheel the Tiger stands two places clockwise from the Rat, at the east-north-east. Its portraits, with its five phases and its places, are Ulune’s own texts, written from what popular books commonly say.

Correspondences