Zodiac Fortune
Your fortune this year by the twelve zodiac animals, including the Samjae cycle.
The East Asian zodiac reads the year's luck through the twelve animal signs of your birth year. The relation between your sign and the year's reigning branch — harmony or clash — and whether you are in a Samjae (three-calamity) period form the heart of the reading. maiunse assigns signs by Lunar New Year's Day rather than the spring solar term. The twelve branches were originally just twelve markers for counting years; pairing them with animals spread from around the Later Han, which is why the creatures differ a little from country to country — Vietnam has a cat where others have a rabbit. Samjae names the three years in every nine that fall on you according to your sign, divided into the entering, the dwelling and the leaving year. It does not mean misfortune is fixed; it has always been read as a stretch to take care through.
How it works
Your birth year's earthly branch sets your zodiac animal, and its relationship with this year's pillar shapes the reading. If you were born before Lunar New Year, the lunar calendar places you in the previous animal.
What you'll get
You see this year's overall fortune and its month-by-month flow, which animals suit you and which to treat with care, your Samjae years, and this year's lucky color, direction, and number. Apart from the year's own turn, the sign itself carries a love style, a line of work it suits, and a grain for money and health. The animal is one earthly branch, but the heavenly stem of that birth year is set up alongside it, so the same animal splits five ways. If you enter the hour you were born, one more section sets the year branch against the hour branch — what you inherit, and what you leave.
Your animal does not decide your character
Hundreds of millions of people share each animal sign. If a sign settled character, all of them would be alike, and they plainly are not. The twelve branches began as marks for counting years, and what a zodiac reading looks at is the relation between the year you were born and the present one. Take it as a tool for gauging the flow of a year rather than for sorting people, and it becomes far more useful.
How to read your sign against the year
If this year branch and your sign combine, it reads as a year in which things run smoothly; if they clash, as a year with a lot of movement. A clash does not simply mean a bad year. It leans more toward changes of position and new undertakings, and for anyone who has prepared deliberately it can be the year that opens. Think of the smooth years as time to build a base and the moving years as time to decide.
How to get through a samjae year
There is no need to shrink because a samjae year has come round. Even in the old reading it was not a period when misfortune was fixed, but one to pass through without starting anything vast, keeping an eye out. Firming up what you already do rather than launching something large, and not overtaxing your body or your money, is enough. Rather than spending three years being careful, just check once more at the points where a decision is needed.
How to use the twelve monthly readings
Piling all your work into the months that read well and doing nothing in the ones that read poorly wrecks your rhythm instead of helping it. The monthly flow is better taken as a hint about which months deserve a little more attention. In a month that reads low, put tidying and review there rather than launching something new, and you will move far more lightly when the next one arrives.
Do not pick people by their sign
There have long been sayings about which animals do not suit each other, but do not use them to choose or reject a person. Filtering a marriage partner or a colleague by animal sign goes far past what this reading can carry. The compatible and cautionary signs are only a hint about where two people tend to rub, and pairs said not to suit each other get on well for years all the time. Used as a filter, all this does is shut out people you never met.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which animal am I if I was born before Lunar New Year?
The zodiac runs on the lunar calendar, so a birthday before the New Year falls under the previous animal. Enter your birth date and the conversion is done for you.
How often does the zodiac reading change?
It is based on this year's pillar, so it refreshes when the year turns. Changes within the year are shown as a month-by-month flow.
Should I really be careful during the three-calamity years?
Samjae is a traditional idea that each animal sign passes through three such years once every nine. It does not mean misfortune is fixed — read it closer to advice about easing your load and not rushing large changes.
Can I check compatibility with a parent or child's sign?
Use the zodiac compatibility page and choose the two signs directly. It reads the same way for family and colleagues as for partners: triangles and six harmonies as easy pairs, clashes and harms as pairs that rub.
Why does it ask for my birth time?
Give a time and the branch of that hour is read alongside, which adds one more section. If the year branch stands for what came down to you from the family, the hour branch stands for what you pass on, and the relation between the two pillars is read as the grain running between the generations. You do not need it — leave the time blank and your sign, score and year still come out the same, and adding it does not change those three.