60 Year Cycle

Activity

Use colored pencils to color the element relationships.

Water = black
Wood =green
Fire = red
Earth = yellow
Metal = gray, white, or silver

1.  EACH ANIMAL HAS AN INHERENT ELEMENT

In the first column, outline the boxes with the inherent element color of the animal. For example, since the rat is governed by water, outline this box in black. The next box down is the tiger, whose inherent element is wood, so outline this box in green. Continue until each box in the first column has been outlined in the correct element color.

When you have finished the entire first column, return to the top of the chart. Beginning with the rat, put a dot of color about the size of a thumb tack in each box of ‘rat years’ in the ‘rat row’. The colored dots in the ‘rat row’ will all be black. The colored dots in the ‘tiger row’ will all be green, etc. The first column which you outlined in the animal’s color is the correct color to use for each row. Do all 12 animals.

2.  RELATIONSHIP AMONG THE ANIMALS’ INHERENT ELEMENTS AND THE ELEMENT OF THE YEAR

Return to these year boxes and encircle the animal’s color dot that you just made with the element color of the year. For example, since the rat in inherently water and water is its first year box, it is black and black, and so looks like a larger black circle of color. The next ‘rat year box’ is wood, so the black dot of color is encircled with the green of wood. The next rat year box is fire, so the black dot of color is encircled by red, and so on. What you are showing with these colors is the relationship between the inherent element of the animal and the element of the time. When you have finished the rat, go on and do the rest of the animals.

Go back now and look at the color relationships you have created. As you look at them, consider whether they are governed by the creative or destructive cycle. For example, the wood rat is water + wood, which is creative. The fire rat is water + fire, which is destructive. Put an “x” in the box that shows the destructive cycle and an “o” in the boxes where the destructive cycle is governing. For now we will not go into the many differences even these simple relationships produce, e.g., among the water rat in a wood time vs. a wood rat in a water time. For now it is enough to realize creative and destructive cycles operate viz. a viz. the animals’ inherent elements and the time itself.

3.  60 YEAR CYCLE

In the Chinese calendar-clock there are 12 animals and 5 elements. Thus (12×5=60) the animal cycle requires 60 years to make ‘a unit of one’. Where the western clock uses 60 seconds to make a unit of one minute, and 60 minutes to make a unit of one hour, the Chinese take a longer view, and use 60 years to make a unit of one cycle. If you wish to see the next cycle, just add 60 years to the most recent year in each box, e.g., the yang water rat box pf 1972+60=2032.