The Chinese Astrology Ox Symbol is the Zodiac Sign for 2009

The Chinese have made use of constellations for over 3000 years for the purposes of astrology. In Chinese astrology Ox comes after Rat and this year, 2009 is the year of the Earth Ox. When Chinese astrology first began they names 10 Heavenly Stems and 12 Earthly Branches, chiefly for chronological purposes to tell apart time and the season.

Later on in time, as so many Chinese people were illiterate animals became used by people to represent the 12 Earthly Branches, these are used today, and in order are: mouse, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, rooster, dog and pig, in Chinese astrology, Ox is representative of 2009.

Legend tells that Buddha was celebrating Chinese New Year and he invited all animals to partake of the festivities. Unfortunately only these 12 animals arrive. In honor of them he named the years after them. There are other variations of this story, but for the purposes of this information we shall use this one. People who are born in the year of the animal it is represented by are supposed to have some traits of these animals inherent in them.

As well as the animal cycles we find element cycles. The five elements are wood, fire, earth, metal (gold) and water, each element is represented by color with fire being red, earth, brown, wood, green, water black and metal, white (although the metal element is supposedly gold). These are placed at the top of each animal and the sign would read, "wood rooster", or "metal dragon".

The elements are then arranged in a cycle of ten and combined with the binary Yin and Yang. Together with the animals and colors this forms a cycle of 60 years, with no animal appearing twice in either the Yin or the Yang years. The animals are divided by two and are either Yin or Yang. For instance a snake is Yin, while a dragon is Yang. We are currently in a 60 year cycle which commenced in 1984 and all Chinese astrology cycles begin with "wood rat" and end with "Water Pig".

In Chinese astrology, ox, is very similar in nature to Rat and it is the second zodiac sign. The year of the ox signifies steady building or slow, sure action. There are long term implications to the decisions you make in the year of the Ox, so good choices need to be made. Unfortunately 2009 is an earth Ox year and water is the ruling element of Ox. This creates a conflict, and in fact of the last six Chinese years four have had conflicting element signs, this tends to be destructive and Chinese astrologers believe this is why the earth has undergone so much upheaval in the last 6 years.