Reading The Animal And Element

In Chinese folk astrology a year is read first through its animal and then adjusted by its element. The pig closes the twelve animal cycle, read in Chinese folk tradition as a sign of material comfort and generosity rather than the harsher reading the same animal carries in some other traditions. A pig year historically closed the cycle on a note of abundance before the rat opened it again. The element modifies that base reading: in the five phase (Wu Xing) system Earth governs the center, the color yellow, the turning point between seasons and the virtue of good faith. An Earth year is traditionally read as a stabilizing pause after the more active phases around it; Earth is held to feed Metal and to be held in check by Wood.

Put together, 1959 reads in the folk tradition as a Pig year with a Earth cast, Earth's steadiness tempering the animal's own temperament rather than replacing it. The same twelve animal cycle, adapted with local variation, also orders the traditional calendars of Vietnam, where the rabbit is usually read as a cat, and of Japan, where the pig is usually read as a boar; the underlying stem and element layer that gives 1959 its Earth cast specifically is a Chinese addition that these neighboring traditions do not all keep in the same form. Older reckonings also put the same twelve branches to work outside the calendar of years: the same order once named the twelve double hours of the day and the twelve compass points, so Pig marks a direction and a stretch of the clock in those older systems as well as this year.