February 12th heralds the Chinese New Year of the Metal Ox riding in on the second new moon following Winter solstice (northern hemisphere). Chinese Astrology 2021: Year of the Metal OX
A Year of Recovery, Restoration and Quiet Rebellion
Ox always follows Rat, who creates the flavour of the new twelve-year animal cycle, deciding what seeds are planted for the years ahead. Rat’s artfulness disrupts what is no longer working, as history demonstrates. The last Rat year—2008—saw the financial markets crash, due to the delusion of subprime mortgages. We spent 2009, the Ox year, quietly recovering, rebuilding our lives and instituting measures to prevent a reoccurrence. It happened before too. Three hundred years ago, in the metal Rat year of 1720, the South Sea Bubble collapsed, and junk bond investors lost everything. The metal Ox year of 1721 saw a devasted populous coming to terms with its losses.
What we lost in 2020
Fast forward and the 2020 Rat has outdone itself spreading the plague of the current pandemic and disrupting what is out of balance in an attempt to correct it. For all last year’s human tragedy, the massive reduction of travel reduced air pollution faster than any global initiative could have achieved. Rat can be a harsh and indiscriminate teacher, but is also a highly intelligent survivor, favouring the pack over the individual.
In 2020 Rat brought us to our knees, forcing us to stop and reflect on how we live and relate. Now strong but gentle Ox comes to turn over the earth, ready for the seeds of recovery. Ox is an emissary of Gaia, and 2021 will be a year of deep contemplation. Where are we at as a human race? What do we intend to do about it? Our extraction of resources from the Earth is not sustainable. We are all culpable, to a greater or lesser degree, in our desire for more. It is time to live by the creed of the honourable harvest—not taking more than we need or that which is not freely given. Whether lab-created or the result of our heinous abuse of the animal kingdom, Covid-19 can be seen as the great push-back from Mother Earth. We need to re-educate and reorientate ourselves towards a psychology and ecology of restoration and renewal.
If we look back 60 years to the last Metal Ox year, we see the resonances and themes of recovery in motion. Democrat J F Kennedy was elected the youngest president of the USA. 60 years later we have Democrat Biden inaugurated as the oldest, once again promising a return to reason and inclusivity. In 1961 JFK established the Peace Corps, Nelson Mandela was acquitted of treason, and Nazi war criminals were tried in Israel.
Chinese Astrology 2021
The Chinese underpin their astrology on the interactions of the five elements that comprise life: fire, metal, water, wood and earth. They enjoy compatible or antagonistic relationships with one another, which governs how the year’s trends will manifest. Ox’s natural element is Yin Earth, giving rise to sensitivity, psychic knowing and fertility. 2021 is a metal element year. Earth feeds metal through the compression of the soil over millennia, meaning the natural energies of the Ox will be enhanced. Yin metal is soft, receptive, feminine, governing matters such as jewellery, precious metals and indeed the vaccine needle.
Whether we agree with it or not, the global vaccine programme will be the primary agenda of 2021. That fine metal needle is an apt metaphor for this year’s energies. It seems we are yet to learn how to be in the unknowing until the right response arrives. We are still in our infant evolutionary state of ‘reaction’ to events that makes us feel powerless. Our instinctive response to the pandemic is to attempt to regain control through mass vaccination.
Much of the larger narrative has been hinting at the need for population control on a planet of limited resources and a growing population of seven billion to date. Yet paradoxically the Ox’s fertility will see an explosion of lockdown babies birthed in 2021.
What 2021 will bring
Metal rules the lungs. Our essential need to breathe, clean air, fear and grief, the emotions of the lungs will remain themes. There has been so much loss in 2020 that inevitably 2021 will give rise to an outpouring of humanity’s grief. This mourning process is natural and necessary. In our method of expression, we have a choice. We could take up the sword and fight as our anger rises covering the sadness underneath. Some will choose this path and pockets of rebellion will birth new social movements as our collective anger is fuelled by injustices.
Or we could choose the quiet metal of the pen and use the creative power of our collective grief to express something more profound. The yin metal Ox has an uncanny knack of finding impeccable solutions to problems. There is mental agility and great new talent to be uncovered in the brooding moodiness of 2021. New thought leaders will emerge both in the philosophical realm and in the arenas of science and technology. Yin metal, e.g. the great cosmologist, Stephen Hawking, has substance and value as much as shine.
Numerology 2021
From a numerological perspective 2020 was a year of grounding, stability and containment arising from the energies of the number four. And we were indeed grounded within the four walls of our home for most of it! We now move into the transformative five of 2021 (2+2+1). Giving rise to a year of movement, transition, instability, rebellion, change and yes, renewed possibility to travel once more. Hopefully we cultivated our inner stability and authority in the great pause of 2020. This ability to hold our centre in the eye of the storm will be crucial to navigating 2021. The external will prove to be chaotic and quietly rebellious, requiring us to be nimble in our responses. The lessons of 2020 to lead a simpler life unburdened by the heavy chains of clutter, baggage and obligation will have prepared us well.
Tarot & Chinese Astrology 2021
From an archetypal perspective, 20 gives us the tarot symbol of Judgment and 21 The World. We are completing the process arising from the double judgment of 2020. There is no going back to normal. The normal we had become accustomed to was and is no longer sustainable. In totality 2021 is governed by the archetype of the Hierophant (5). This is the patriarchal inheritance that our souls are rising in resistance too, the judgmental God, the control and command programme we have been birthed into. We will only complete this transition when we truly wake up to the fact that ‘we are the ones we have been waiting for’. That won’t happen in 2021, humanity has been culturally programmed to expect a saviour for over 2000 years. That habituated conditioning is what allows governments and corporations to decide what’s best for us and for us to agree that they know best. In the quest for social order, for the illusion of peace and safety we have acquiesced our sovereign souls.
This is the ‘great change’ that is coming. The one all the ancient prophecies from the Hopi to the Inca talk of. The evolution of the human soul into accepting response-ability for itself, it’s thoughts and its actions. It’s time for humanity to grow up. Mummy and daddy are not coming to the rescue. It’s a tough birthing process but this is the cellular, evolutionary shift that is occurring. From the merged mind of the ancients, we evolved into our current dualistic paradigm of separation. We can only move forward, there is no going back. The third age of mind will be the evolution of the unified whole emerging from the integration of our current duality. Awakening into this truth, realising our infinite potential in the field of pure unified consciousness is the Golden Age the ancients foresaw. The Metal Ox year of 2021 won’t be the realisation of this prophecy, but it will see the seeding of the social movements and new philosophies that can help us cross the chasm of our inevitable evolution.
Tips for Good Luck for all 2021
- Wear Metal Jewelry for luck
- Plant seeds in your garden or window box to honour the earth
- Clear clutter (always!)
- Put round metal bowl in NW corner of home and when you empty pockets put your spare change in here – when full give away to charity and begin again.
