Aquarius · Rat
Bat
“Sees the room in a way nobody else in it can.”
The Bat is the Ancient Zodiac sign for an Aquarius born in the Year of the Rat, the point where the Aquarius sun meets the Rat moon.
The Aquarius-Rat, known as the Bat, perceives what other people miss and acts on it early. Aquarius brings the outsider's angle, the mind that stands slightly to the side of the situation. The Rat brings resourcefulness, timing, and a talent for reading which way things are about to move. Together they make someone quick, watchful, and usually a step ahead. Bats navigate by shouting into the dark and listening to what returns, a sense precise enough to catch a moth in flight or to distinguish a leaf from prey. They are the only mammals that truly fly, they live far longer than an animal their size has any right to, and vampire bats will share a meal with a hungry roost mate and remember who shared with them. Strange, social, and equipped with an entire extra sense. Aquarius-Rats are perceptive to the point of unnerving. They notice tension before it is spoken, spot the flaw in a plan while everyone else is still enthusiastic, and quietly arrange their own position accordingly. They are loyal to their circle and reserved with everyone else. The risk is a certain nocturnal cast of mind: reading motives that were never there, and keeping their own counsel so thoroughly that people never learn what they think. The name fits because a bat is not blind and never was. It simply refused the sense everyone else relies on and built a better one for the conditions it chose to live in.
Bat Birth Dates
You are the Bat if you were born in one of these stretches, when the Sun was in Aquarius during a year of the Rat.
- February 18 to February 18, 1912
- January 20 to February 5, 1913
- February 5 to February 18, 1924
- January 20 to January 23, 1925
- January 24 to February 18, 1936
- January 20 to February 10, 1937
- February 10 to February 18, 1948
- January 20 to January 28, 1949
- January 28 to February 18, 1960
- January 20 to February 14, 1961
- February 15 to February 18, 1972
- January 20 to February 2, 1973
- February 2 to February 18, 1984
- January 20 to February 18, 1985
- January 20 to February 6, 1997
- February 7 to February 18, 2008
- January 20 to January 25, 2009
- January 25 to February 18, 2020
- January 20 to February 11, 2021
- February 11 to February 18, 2032
- January 20 to January 30, 2033
Some of these are short. A lunar year opens at Chinese New Year rather than on 1 January, so where that boundary falls inside Aquarius it cuts the window in two, and the days on either side belong to different signs.
Aquarius
“Carries the water, and is not a water sign.”
Aquarius is fixed air ruled by Uranus, which makes it the most reliably contrary sign in the zodiac: attached to its principles with total inflexibility, and attached to almost nothing else. It thinks in systems and populations rather than individuals, it is drawn to whatever the accepted arrangement has excluded, and it can be warm with everyone while remaining slightly outside the group. The most useful thing to know about it is the thing that confuses everyone. The water bearer is an air sign, and it is not a contradiction: the figure is Ganymede, carried up to Olympus to pour for the gods, and what matters is not the water but the pouring. Air distributes. The constellation sits in a region of sky the ancients called the Sea, surrounded by the fish, the river and the sea goat, and Aquarius is the one standing above all of it with the jar, handing out something everybody needs and keeping none of it. An Aquarius is the friend with the unreasonable and correct opinion, the one organising for a cause that will not benefit them, the person who was into it before it was legible to anyone else. They are inventive, principled and hard to move. The cost is the altitude: enormous feeling for humanity in general, and a real awkwardness with the specific person in front of them who wants closeness rather than a position.
Polarity: positive · Modality: fixed · Element: air · Ruler: Uranus
Rat
“Won the race without swimming a stroke of it.”
The Rat opens the cycle, and it did not get there by being the strongest or the fastest. It got there by thinking about the problem differently from everyone else in it. This is the sign of resourcefulness, timing and quick assessment: alert to opportunity, thrifty by instinct, and comfortable in situations that reward wit over force. The story is worth telling exactly. The Jade Emperor called a race across a wide river to decide the order of the years, and the Rat, who could not swim it, persuaded the Ox to let it ride along. The Ox agreed, being the kind of animal that agrees, and swam the whole distance carrying a passenger. At the far bank, with the finish in sight, the Rat jumped from the Ox's head and landed first. Twelve years of the calendar were decided by one animal working out that the race was not actually a swimming contest. Rat people are quick, charming and highly observant, with an eye for the opening nobody else noticed and a strong instinct to provide for their own. They are excellent in a crisis and rarely without a plan. The cost is the jump: an ability to see the advantage so clearly that it gets taken before the question of whether it was fair has been given much of a hearing.
Polarity: yang · Direction: north · Element: water
Zodiac Interplay
Polarity: Solar Noon
Both engines pointed the same way: forward.
Your solar half leans out toward the world and your lunar half pushes from behind, so there is no internal committee meeting before you act. You are the one saying "let's just go" while everyone else is still reading the reviews, and you are usually already halfway there by the time they agree.
Modality and Direction: Keystone
Remove you and the arch notices.
Sustaining energy set into northern ground. You are the load-bearing element in most rooms you are in - not the loudest presence, just the one everything else turns out to be resting on.
Elemental Cycle: Mist
You get everywhere, and nobody sees you arrive.
Solar air suspended in lunar water. You think and feel in the same breath, which lets you slip into situations sideways and understand them from the inside before anyone has explained anything.
Generating. Water feeds air, which holds the wood phase. Your Rat half is the fuel and your Aquarius half is what it becomes.
Bat Best Matches
- Bat and Chameleon: Total Eclipse, 98 out of 100
- Bat and Vulture: Total Eclipse, 98 out of 100
- Bat and Chimera: Total Eclipse, 95 out of 100
Bat Hardest Matches
- Bat and Mantis: Night Crossing, 33 out of 100
- Bat and Camel: Night Crossing, 34 out of 100
- Bat and Donkey: Night Crossing, 34 out of 100
Other Aquarius Signs
The eleven other signs an Aquarius can be, one for each remaining year of the Chinese zodiac. Same sun, different moon.
Other Rat Signs
The eleven other signs someone born in a year of the Rat can be, one for each remaining sun sign. Same moon, different sun.
