Water Tiger Year (2022)

This article is a collaborative offering by Claudia Anfuso and Erin Langley.

Ride the Yang Water Tiger 

(and don’t get devoured) in 2022

The New Moon of February 1st, 2022 marks the official entrance into the Chinese New Year of the Yang Water Tiger. Celebrations around the world usher in this new cycle of time at a moment in history in which so many are desperately eager to move on. What’s lurking ahead?

We Are Time and Everything is Self Resolving

Chinese astrology is actually misnamed astrology – it is not about watching the movements of stars and constellations. It is a way to look at the sequence of time to tell us something about ourselves and our place in the orchestration of life. Exploring time cycles reveals something because we are the sequence of time. Our experience is the evidence that there is a sequence of time.

The notion of time is the correct definition of what Qi is. Qi is rhythm. And what we are talking about when we are looking at the year of the Water Tiger is a particular flavor of rhythm. What are the qualities of this flavor of rhythm as it unfolds? How is the rhythm of this year different from the rhythm of last year? And how does the rhythm of this year transform into the rhythm of next year? 

Understanding rhythm allows us to adjust our steps to keep up with the dance of life. A far-away tune seems to become clearer and clearer … the melody and beat start to change and with agility we respond and adapt in order to keep on dancing the dance of life. 

Why the Tiger? What role did the Tiger play in the world thousands of years ago? Let’s explore where this Tiger flavor originated from so to best glimpse its qualities. 

Subduing The Tiger

The Tiger has always been known as a successful predator of humans – a “man eater”. Being devoured by a Tiger was, at some point of our human history and for some regions of the world, a relatively common cause of death. As humans developed ways to insulate and protect themselves from the perils of the wild, the wild Tiger populations in our world dwindled to what now is a species facing unrelenting pressures from poaching, retaliatory killings, and habitat loss. Fewer than 4,000 Tigers are said to still roam our planet in the wild. 

Back then, Tigers were the size of a large SUV, weighed half a ton and still had sharp saber teeth protruding from their mouths. Tigers would slide into towns and snack on humans (particularly kids). They were registered, in the Han Dynasty (202 BC – 220 AD), as the second most common cause of death among humans after war. One of the promises of Han military dominance was that they would rid the country of Tigers. And so they did. 

The Han Dynasty army is said to have proudly murdered more than a million Tigers in over 400 years. It is recounted that whenever the army didn’t have an enemy, they went out killing Tigers. The Han logic was that if they sent all the Tigers on the other side, to the spirit world, that the Tigers would then become docile to them. The whole army took this shamanic bent. It was at that time that the tradition of using the character for Tiger as an amulet began. Written on farmhouse doors, the “hu” character is considered a talisman to ward off fire, theft and illness.

By then, many shamanic traditions and tribes had already recruited the Tiger as the most powerful animal spirit invoked by shaman all across Asia. Tiger iconology pervades Daoist and Buddhist art. Sages, Masters, and wrathful Deities wear Tiger skins as aprons or shawls, have Tigers as companions, or even ride them. The Tiger symbol became an emblem of power and dignity. Holy women and men meditating and preaching while seated on a flayed Tiger skin is a tradition with a long ancestry thought Asia.

The symbolism throughout all this is that of taming the tiger. Simply put, this means harnessing the power of the charged qualities of Tiger Qi: daring, dignity, energy, dynamism, adventure, courage, rebelliousness, strong will, enthusiasm, unconventionality, competition, determination, nobility, generosity, dedication, imagination, honesty, charm and luck.

Which brings us to…

Yang-Water-Tiger Year

The Chinese understanding of the rhythm of time invokes a simple rhythm of 12 — the 12 Animals. This is coupled with a rhythm of 5 which is even simpler — that of the elements earth, fire, metal, wood, water. Which is furthermore coupled with the simplest rhythm of 2 — Yin and Yang. Multiplied by each other this gives us the 120 year “century.” These pulsing rhythms and cycles are the foundation of the yearly, hourly, and monthly lunar cycle patterns explored in Chinese Astrology. 

None of these rhythms are really to be understood by themselves. They are an expression of a sequence. They turn into each other like a whirlwind. To get a feel for the cycle we are entering, we therefore take a look at the yearly cycle that preceded this one, the Year of the Yin Metal Ox.

Nervous Twitching Tail

We are currently in the nervous twitching end of tail of the Year of the Yin Metal Ox, and entering into the cycle of time called the Year of the Yang Water Tiger. Ox Year stiffness and staleness gives birth to the Tiger, who will do anything not to be stagnant. The Spring festival, the beginning of the Chinese Year celebrated with the Lantern Festival, carries with it the promise of a vigorous Spring sprouting forth (despite heavy icepack over the field).

Feeling held back by a year that has pressured us into putting one foot carefully in front of the other, we are eager to spring forward. And indeed all pointers indicate that the spring will be a time of great change, collectively and personally. 

The cumbersome dull quality of the Ox has to be escaped now. And the “I’m out of here” response is the Tiger. Escaping convention is about to become a major theme. The winter is Ox and the Tiger leaps forward with the spring in response to that bogged down quality of conventionality. 

Tiger Qi takes the conventionality of the Ox and renews it. From rules to intuitiveness. From compliance to revolution. From old world order to regeneration. The rule-based world of the past year lacks intuition and the Tiger paves the way for that new direction to take off. Tiger Year shakes things up and Rabbit Year, which follows, is going to ground the intuition with a stronger sense empathy and leadership. The process of renewal starts now. 

 

Water Tiger – “Roaming Tiger”

Tiger year occurs once every 12 years, and each Tiger year is also associated with an element. This year’s element is Water. The element of the year is fundamentally harmonious. Water generates Wood, which is the Tiger’s native element. For the first half of the year, the monthly and yearly elements are working together. Conflict is more likely to arise between June and September, when the elements begin to undermine the Water Tiger. August is particularly incendiary. This could mean political turmoil, environmental calamities, and health issues. In the last Water Tiger Year (1962), the Cuban Missile Crisis threatened the world with nuclear war. We have already seen missile activity from Russia and North Korea as well as underwater volcanic eruptions in Tonga. These are very Tiger phenomena.

The Chinese character “shui” for water Is composed of several intersecting lines like well-springs rising or streams flowing into a river. Water adds drama, emotion, and generosity to the Tiger. It lends depth and pervasiveness to the scale of influence of the year. Water permeates, connects, and resolves. It generates renewal. 

Water’s power depends on its clarity and movement quality. What does this refreshing, daring, powerful pressing forward energy invite? Let’s explore Tiger image.

Riding the Tiger

(aka: What’s on the Menu This Year)

The year ahead has abundant power. The energy is designed to go forward and be forceful and direct but is also rendered irregular and uneven by emotion and drama and out of control behaviors. 

Defined by Change

The past few years have seen all of us undergo challenging and profound adaptations in response to the apparently outward pressures of the shadow of Covid-19. We each have responded to those outward pressures, and to the myriad of unknown variables in the giant puzzle of life, to the best of our abilities. The integrity of our beliefs and our core values has been repeatedly challenged, tested, and forged in the fire of tremendous upheaval. We have witnessed the crumbling of the familiar world — one in which many of us felt trapped. 

With new variables constantly surfacing regarding our global situation, we have digested, learned, pondered, debated, and each come to conclusions about how to act and how to weave the tapestries of our lives as we have watched so many structures around us fall apart. We are witnessing the deep separation, polarization, and fear that this has surfaced amongst us. What we have fought for, or against, has hardened our stances. 

The nature of truth and the meaning of justice have driven our inquiries. The old normal is over, and we are entering a new space, the space between the stories of old and the stories we are yet to write. Tiger Year is the year of great unknowns and possibilities. It is a year of continued great changes and redefinition of many of the structures of our life.

Change — from innovation to chaos — defines the year ahead. This is reflected also in other languages of astrology. Springtime 2022 will initiate great change. In Indian Astrology, the giants are on the move. Jupiter, who changes sign every year, moves into its own sign of Pisces. Saturn, who changes signs every two and a half years, is moving into its own sign of Aquarius for a few months and then moving back into its own sign of Capricorn. The nodal axis of Rāhu and Ketu, which change sign every year and a half, are also on the move. And all of this is happening in the span of the month of April. There are some powerful transitions ahead, and how this unfolds personally for you is best left to be explored with your astrologer of choice. 

The Power of Unpredictable

Tiger Qi is big, dynamic, powerful and unpredictable. The unpredictable Tiger can mean big personal, environmental, and political changes. 

The world has changed, and things are NOT going back to where they were before. Ox year (2021) was one step forward into this new world, yet somewhat stiff, rigid, and uncomfortable for many. Tiger Year is a leap forward, and is going to prove challenging unless we have digested our resistance to the new normal. A new normal which at this point has nothing normal about it. A new normal in which certainties are crumbling and we are confronted with deep instabilities in our local governments, great upheavals in our environment, and pronounced apparent differences amongst human beings. 

Things are NOT going back to the way they were before. Let that sink in deeply. Have you adapted yet? Where are you still resisting?

Tiger year ups the ante on unpredictability. Are you willing to live in unpredictability? To the extent that you truly are, you will be able to ride this Tiger year through its dangers. You can meet this energy by seeking out where you are still in resistance and digesting that. What are you saying “No” to? Tiger Year is a mirror for the fear that unpredictability triggers in you. If you have gotten used to something and don’t want to lose it, that attachment tension is what Tiger year brings to the surface.

Some call the capacity for adaptation courage. Even better — let’s call it daring. Daring is in this year.

The year’s auspices are commensurate to your ability to be agile and adapt to shifting circumstances.

Major change favors the practitioner, and paradoxically brings stability. We may be tested in myriad ways. Rise to the occasion, and ground yourself in the only thing that never changes — Awareness.

The Illusion of Control

Tigers represent, in the Taoist tradition, everything that is out of control. Unpredictable means out of control. Riding the Tiger means that out-of-control does not bother you. It does not mean you have control over it. The ancient mystics known to have hung out with Tigers were not controlling their fear — they were fearless. 

What would it be like not to worry? How would you act if you did not worry? That’s how the Tiger Qi moves — without concern for obstacles. The illusion of managing and controlling the world around us has not brought forth its promised paradise.

After a run of years of tremendous amounts of worrying, Tiger Qi invites further relaxation into the raw quality of unmanageability. Tigers in the wild don’t have to manage — they simply rule. They establish the rules of their environment, so they don’t have to abide by rules and, in fact, they actually don’t even like rules. Rules are out this year. Unconventionality is in. Exhausted from being told what to do, Tiger Qi takes matters in its own hands and brings about change.

Eyes on the Target  — Strategize

Tiger Qi is daring. But daring does not mean being recklessly impulsive. Know the difference. Are you acting or re-acting?

As the Tiger hunts its prey, it glides in the tall grass and patiently calculates the precise moment in which it needs to lunge forward — the gazelle is now within range, and it’s mine. This requires vigilance, and an instinctual strategy. It reflects action that is daring, but not reckless. 

The past few years have redefined what is of value for us. This year the hammer falls on this issue. What is important and not important to you? Continue to explore the proliferation, the privilege, and the self-centeredness of your life and figure out what really matters to you. What makes your life well lived? The house is burning… do you really need what is in your Amazon shopping cart? Act accordingly, and stay agile as circumstances shift. 

Tigers instinctively prey on weakness and can easily navigate darkness. When they find what they desire, they lunge. Stay focused on what truly matters for you. Strategize. The military image is appropriate here — strategizing based on the expectation of trouble and for the purpose of acquiring power and strength. Tigers thrive in situations that require strategy and responsiveness.

Reclusiveness and Aggression — The Stripes

Tigers are known for their striped appearance as well as their striped characters. When they’re not boldly ruling the world, they withdraw into long stretches of seclusion. The fierce Tiger public image (orange stripes) alternates with a requirement for solitude and down time to restore (black stripes). Immense strength alternates with withdrawal and retreat.  Tiger Qi is both extremely aggressive and extremely reclusive, it goes from bold to asleep. Boldness is what it is famous for because when asleep it’s usually hidden. “I can do anything!”  takes turns with “Wellll…. maybe later.” “Leave me alone” gives way to “I’m going to go for it!”

The entire Qi profile for this year will have that quality of unevenness. There will be push times and glide times, times to strongly move forward and times in which what is best indicated is to restore by pulling back. The continuous forging ahead plowing energy of the Ox, which is thick-skinned and somewhat clueless, develops into a vigilance, an attentiveness. It also develops into an aggressiveness — the feline contentiousness. We all have sweet ideas about our pet cats until they bring in the bloody carcass of a mouse they have hunted… 

Expect extreme highs and lows, alternating reversals of fortune, and complacency between lunges. Gauge the appropriateness of times that are good for action, and times that are good for pulling back, restoring, and strategizing. This capacity plays out differently for each individual animal chracter.

Accountability – Own It!

Given the Water element of the year, emotional self-sufficiency is indicated. Emotional drama will seriously undermine the year’s potential. Are you harnessing the power of your emotions to transform your patterns of limitations, or are you dispersing that energy outward into the world in repetitive patterns of outrage and reactivity?

Ground yourself in Awareness, let the wave of emotion rise, be with what that wave brings you as a gift, let it pass over you and through you, and wait for the wave to pass before acting out. Otherwise you invite mishaps and danger.

Regulate your inner world so that the outer world is not so hazardous. How can you be precise when you are emotional? How can you be vigilant and one-pointed when you are hysterical?

Tapping into the potency of Tiger Qi can only happen if you are accountable. Accountability means that you own it — you own what comes up in you. You take full responsibility for the emotions that arise in you, for your choices and for your actions. That is the essence of Tiger dignity. 

Embodying Tiger nobility means not blaming others nor making excuses. Do what you can to make amends when things go wrong (and they will). Keep yourself accountable. Stay agile in shifting landscapes. 

Remember that Tiger Qi, when depleted is restless, impulsive, inconsiderate, stubborn, egotistical, rebellious, indecisive, overly sensitive to criticism, impatient, prideful and vain. 

You can become iconic if you overcome your impulses. Go from reaction (etymologically breaks down to doing again and again) to responsibility (the ability to respond to a situation).  

Trust Your Own Experience

The final teaching by the great Tantric Buddhist Master Padmasambhava apparently was this: “Don’t trust anybody.” Let’s unpack. The only thing worth trusting is your own experience — your own experience is actually worth trusting. 

Break free from the hypnotic spell of not trusting yourself. If you have made a mistake – experience your mistake. If you have made a good choice, experience your good choice. Stay with your own experience. Feel what life actually is without someone else having to tell you about it. That’s Tiger Qi. 

Being skeptical about absolutely everything, including the advice from your friends, is part of Tiger intelligence. You find the value of making your decisions in your experience. To the extent that you have not bothered to do that in the past, or you have relied on others for what constitutes value, or you have had to look up what creates value for you online — this year will be difficult. 

If you think about it, you should not need to trust anyone. You’re not living an authentic life if your decision are based on a need to trust others. If you trust too many people you are actually devaluing your own experience. Trust is a lovely quality but it is ultimately decorative. You shouldn’t need it. If you don’t need to trust anyone, you can give trust. When we go past that need quality, then trust is really beautiful. And if someone gives it to you or you give it to somebody then it’s a whole different experience from the need to trust.

Go For The Heart 

Last year was a time of clearing out the spiritual pantry and going for what was real for us. A serious and personal approach to spirituality is fruitful this year. 

Your spirituality gains potency through looking backwards and grounding in your own experience. Tighten it up — verify what you have been taught. Value your own practice of meditation. Don’t believe it until you experience it. Don’t compare your experience to anyone else’s. Don’t ask for approval from a teacher. Forget the names and words and go for the heart of the matter.

Stop aspiring. Stop hanging out with folks that only talk fancy spiritual jargon. Forget the teachings — what you have learned is likely to just reinforce your hypocrisy this year. Just do it. There is a solitary nature to spirituality this year. Introspection and reflection are heightened. Meditation retreats are in.

Look backwards now: What is the ground of your experience? We have an enormous opportunity to inhabit our humanity, strengthen our practice, and get real with ourselves. 

Prey On Your Own Hypocrisy

We are wise to apply the predatory instinct to our own hypocrisy this year. The way the Tiger goes for an animal in the wild — turn that onto yourself and be ruthless in your own self-inquiry. Take the energy of the Tiger and be precise with it — focus on dismantling your own bullshit.  If we don’t, the Tiger will do it for us. 

In Ox year, we are less prone to notice our unsavory attributes. Tiger year exposes us. Our delusions stand out starkly against an open savannah. When we notice we’re not in integrity, we can offer it to the Tiger, and then modify our conduct. If hypocrisy continues to live in us, we become lunch. 

There is great potential here. When we’re in so deep that we’re fooling ourselves, the Tiger shows up to help. Big cats commonly prey on shamans in dreams of initiation. It’s best to let them devour us entirely. This can feel agonizing, but initiation needs to be complete. We may not all be shamans, but we are all initiates.

Bust into your illusions and eat their organs out.  Strike hard at the heart of your attachments. Find the courage for an inner revolution. Wake up!

Staying With The Open Heart

Water element invokes completion on the spiritual path. Completion is a remembrance of the already inherently perfectly complete nature of Being. Direct realization paths resonate with Tiger Qi. Turn your attention away from the world to that which is experiencing the world, from the objects of manifestation to the subject.  The Tiger is a powerful symbol of spirituality once this breakaway from the world has been accomplished.

The icons of Essence that the iconography from multiple ancient sacred traditions represent as sitting on a dead Tiger, wearing a Tiger pelt, or riding a living Tiger have realized Oneness. Knowing themselves to be One with all, completion expresses as their conduct — the capacity to be fluid, agile, flexible, alert, awake and mindful no matter what. 

Discover Generosity

Tiger Qi is the great potential of generosity. True generosity is what all our actions become when we stay open, connected, sensitive, and awake — when we abide in the openness of the heart. The etymological root of the word courage is, after all, coeur — heart. There is no true courage without the heart and the heart is about realizing the interconnectedness of all.

This generosity outflow as a true embodiement of nobility and dignity. We protect and support life because we experience the interconnected nature of all things.  

Healthy Space

Relationships can be a bit of a rollercoaster this year. The romantic life of Tigers is not quite the material that feel-good romantic comedies are made of. Female tigers are slightly larger than males, and when they are in heat they consent for brief periods of time to mating without much foreplay… and when done they immediately and aggressively chase the male away. The Tiger need for space turns mates into competitors, and even turns fathers against their own cubs.

Negotiate healthy space into your relationship. While similarity of experience is the primary initial force in our relationships, eventually it is the polarity of differences and distance that sustains the initial attraction. Appreciate the differences. Anti-social is a precious gem this year. 

The Tiger Year Qi also supports changing relationships and breaking of commitments — divorce rates go up and some are likely to experiment with extra relationships — this is disarming for many of the other characters/animals but not for the Tiger. Whatever your choices may be, take full responsibility for the outcome.

Passion is in. 

On the other hand this is a great year to have kids — Tigers kids are relatively easy to raise if you don’t obstruct them. And if you do, watch out!

Integrity is Immunity

Our teacher Liu Ming would entertain us with teaching tales about Tigers based on what he would see in documentaries on the Discovery Channel. Most Tigers live in environments where there are no predators but us humans. So, if left alone for a period of time, they are actually incredibly lazy about protecting themselves…because no one can harm them.

The animal world further teaches us that Tigers are king of the jungle but have naturally weak immunity. They can step on a bone shard and an infection can take them out. An interesting balance between an outer image that can kill everything and an inner image of anything that can kill it. They are therefore most susceptible to what can’t be seen — viruses, bacteria, etc. 

This mirrors our own immune changes due to years of masking, fastidious hand washing, and possible vaccination. And also due to the constant state of alert into which our nervous systems have been triggered. New diseases will likely take advantage of our lowered defenses. We could see new variations of old contagions that have serious health consequences. Bored immune systems are also more likely to incite autoimmune activity. Address all health concerns early in the year. Get mammograms, bloodwork, pap smears, and physicals. Minor issues could become major this year, and genetic illnesses could surface.

Immunity comes from integrity this year. Do whatever it takes to restore your nervous system from the hyper-stimulation and depletion of the past years, and to recover from the onslaught of external triggers. A regulated nervous system is your fiercest ally and the most powerful presence you can offer. Give yourself a news and social media fast to regain your strength — and to recover your integrity.

Your Body is Intelligence

It is difficult to maintain consistent healthy habits this year unless they are grounded in what you actually feel. How do you actually feel in your body? The past few years have paved the way for us to get sensitive to our bodies, feel our physical power, and walk with our feet on the ground.

Pay close attention to the way you actually physically feel — not necessarily what you read in a magazine. Eat when you are hungry. Sleep when you are tired. Learn to listen to the intuitive intelligence of your body. You can remember when you have made good choices and you can return to them.

Thoroughness and routine good habits are the keys for managing health this year.

Where do you get your health habits from? Discipline is not so easy but you can use force this year. Dare yourself into good habits and out of unsupportive ones. 

To support fearlessness, this year it becomes important to nourish kidney qi – regular rest, falling asleep by 11, keeping feet warm, eating foods that nourish the kidneys (warm soups, black rice, black sesame seeds, black beans, black garlic, bone broth, miso, seaweed, cooked dark greens). When our kidneys are depleted is when we are fearful, and the unmanageable side of Tiger comes out.

It is worth noting that one danger of predictive astrology is that we can get caught in hypothetical realms that obscure our present conditions. As such, it important to remember that we are always poised for immanent realization. Like every animal, the Tiger puts the ball is in our courts to work with our circumstances. We are time and space, managing time and space. Relax into your body, rise to the occasion, and return to your experience. That’s the essence of Tiger year.

Auspices for the 12 Animals

What we make of Tiger Year largely depends on our character.

How will our predisposition interact with the energy that is available? Let’s take a brief tour through the animals. Remember that we are all composites, compounds of the cycles of nature. This is just a starting point, not an ending point. The particular element of the year you are born in also modifies the auspices, along with the hour you were born, and your individual natal astrology and the transits for this year. There is much subtlety and depth that can’t be contained in the generic outlines below.

Generally speaking, the more the character tends to worry, the less comfortable it will be with this year’s unevenness. The following highlights are grossly oversimplified glimpses, and not a prediction of how your year will go.

For those signs for which Tiger Qi is less favorable, this does not spell disaster for the year ahead. Remember this is not personal. It is more about energy and appetite than individual experience. There is a cycle coming… Do you take it on? Are you afraid of it? Should you duck and cover? How can you enhance the advantageous aspects and how would the advantageous aspects be diminished? All an inauspicious year means is that it might be a good year to coast and not do anything big. 

Rat (+/-): Start something new, and proceed with caution. Tigers don’t eat rats, so the year is not dangerous. Focus on small gains in new directions–investments, health regimens, projects that break away from old patterns. Use your innate power of maximizing resources. Emotionality can undermine your health, so be disciplined and reconsider treatment options.

Ox (-): It takes a while for you to change direction. Shifts are underway, but you might not catch on, and that can make things dangerous. Your thick skin and underlying strength will see you through most anything, but address the health concerns you’ve been ignoring so they don’t become chronic or deadly. Rely on your friends to help you read the room and stay alert. Don’t take yourself so seriously. Dullness is so last year.

Tiger (+): When the yearly Qi matches your character, there is natural calibration that can feel good and bad. Sometimes the mirror-like quality causes our “stuff” to surface. Deal with it the Tiger way! You can finally let your progressive energy out of the closet. Beware recklessness and emotional hyperbole. Both could put you in danger this year. Be potent, precise, and magnanimous. Reinvent yourself!

Rabbit (-): Your basic rhythm is out of alignment this year, so it’s best to lay low. Jumping forward puts you in danger. This year is perfect for spiritual retreat and recovery. Take good care of your health so that your intuition doesn’t turn into anxiety. Your capacity to tolerate others will get you through. Stay with the team. Lend your intuition to those close to you. Next year, you take center stage.

Dragon (+): Tigers are terrestrial, and dragons are celestial. You’re the only character of the 12 animals who can fly. You feel more powerful than the Tiger, and in some ways, you are. But miscalculation this year can lead to crash-landings. Pretend to be interested in others, and don’t overextend yourself. You thrive on big changes, so you won’t be bored. Use this year to disentangle yourself, and start warming up your wings for 2024. Use your power well.

Snake (-): Spiritual retreat is absolutely ideal. Don’t let your exhaustion get you in trouble. Even Tiger year can feel uneventful to someone so uninterested in the world. Channel Tiger confidence into exercise. But mostly, rest.

Horse (+): Tigers and horses buddy up to get things done. The best news is, there’s plenty of work! The aftermath of environmental, social, and military upheaval ensures that the horse will have a job to do. Horses are unfazed by the body count; they just want to start cleaning up. Use Tiger Qi to break free of gigantic projects you feel enslaved to. Think new job, new home, new partner. Just don’t overdo it.

Goat (+/-): Unsolicited advice rubs people the wrong way, even though you’re trying to keep the peace. Harmonize your insides instead. You could take it even further, and allow input from others. Taking advice from mentors and financial advisors could help make this year a great one. Enlist your excellent judgment to religiously nourish yourself and prevent accidents and exhaustion. Work with your hands.

Monkey (-): Boy, do Tigers dislike Monkeys. Pretend to be someone else this year. Tiger Qi is the most difficult qi for monkeys to digest, so there could be literal digestive upset. Be mindful of diet, and practice intuitive eating. Keep expectations low. Travel and anonymity work well. Monkeys are known for getting into trouble, but the good news is, they seem to enjoy trouble a little bit, and are also good at getting out of it. You will have plenty of opportunities to demonstrate this gift.

Rooster (+): Work those tail feathers. Impress people with your writing and regalia. Be bold! The Tiger is on your team. When opportunities arise for you, don’t second guess yourself. Use your precision and take some risks this year. You have done enough research. You know what you are doing. Just do the thing. What feels risky is actually just a ripe opportunity. It will pay off. Don’t forget to get your annual physical.

Dog (+): Tigers are not known for their loyalty, so circumstances of this year can register as betrayal. It’s not really betrayal—that’s just how you see the world. Be loyal to yourself by cultivating trust in your own appetite and awareness. The depleted dog can become belligerent, and you’re no match for the Tiger. Offset exhaustion by minding your health, complying with your physician, and waiting for the commotion to pass before you act.

Pig (+): Your resilience and adaptability make this a good year for Pigs. Use the Tiger’s focus to override distraction and emotional entanglements. Whether in worldly, spiritual, or romantic matters, go for your dreams. Accept and share this year’s gifts with your friends. Make sure your health is in order. Enjoy rubbing up against stuff, and don’t forget to chew your food.

May all beings have an auspicious Water Tiger Year!

Traditional Taoist New Year Invocation:

I would like to start over. I would like to be honest and say that I really don’t know why I do what I do. If I am owed anything, may that debt be canceled. If what is owed me is merit – I’m not interested. If what is owed me is retribution  – I’m not interested. I’d just like to start over in the cycle of time.  I am recalibrating my relationship to the whole universe. 

This article was written by Claudia Anfuso and Erin Langley.

Erin Langley is an acupuncturist, multimedia artist, and educator. You can find her Weekly Weather astrology reports on Facebook and Instagram. Learn more about her work at Ancestral Acupuncture.

Haiku by Erin Langley

Image Credits (in order of appearance):

1. Crouching Tiger, with poem by Sakuragawa Jihinari. Utagawa, Kunisada, Edo period, 1830. Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Gift of the Friends of Arthur B. Duel
2. Japanese Tiger scroll paining. British Museum
3. Tibetan Buddhist Tiger
4. “Painting of a Herdsman” from late Joseon era attributed to Noga / Courtesy of National Museum of Korea
5. Unknown
6. Miyaguchi/Sonan Tomi-shi).  Late Edo period (1614-1868) painting
7. Sitting Tiger by Maruyama Okyo, 1777
8. Tiger, Kishi Ganku
9. Kanō Sanraku, Dragon and Tiger, early Edo period, 17th century, pair of folding screens, color and gold on paper, 178 x 357 cm each (Myoshinji temple, Kyoto)
10. Itō Jakuchū, Tiger
11. Tiger (detail), Gan Ku, Tiger, hanging scroll, Edo period, c. 1784-96, ink and color on silk. 169 x 114.5 cm, Japan – British Museum
12. Itō Jakuchū, Tiger. Price Collection
13. Itō Jakuchū, Tiger. Price Collection
14. Watanabe Susheki Edo P. Nagasaki School Tiger Scroll. Nagasaki Municipal Museum