Lunar Zodiac · The Moon's Cycle
Tiger
“Went straight through the current, and arrived furious.”
Polarity: yang · Direction: east · Element: wood
The Tiger is courage, appetite and a refusal to be managed. It is the sign that goes at a problem directly, trusts its own strength before it trusts a plan, and finds obedience physically uncomfortable. Magnetic in a room, competitive without much calculation, and honest largely because subtlety feels like a form of cowardice. In the race it did the thing everyone else was trying to avoid. The Tiger swam, into a current strong enough to push it repeatedly downstream, and fought its way across on power alone while cleverer animals rode, floated and drifted. It arrived third, soaked and exhausted, having been beaten by a passenger and by the animal that carried the passenger. The story does not say it was gracious about this. Nothing in the sign suggests it would have been. Tiger people take on things they have no evidence they can do, and win often enough to keep doing it. They are protective, generous, and physically confident in a way that reassures some people and unsettles others. They are terrible at pretending to agree. The cost is the current: enormous energy spent going straight at what could have been gone around, and a temper that flares fast, burns the whole reserve, and leaves them worn out at exactly the moment the next thing arrives.
Years of the Tiger
A Tiger year opens at Chinese New Year, which falls between late January and the middle of February, so it does not line up with the calendar year. Anyone born in the weeks before it belongs to the animal before.
- 1914January 26, 1914 to February 13, 1915
- 1926February 13, 1926 to February 1, 1927
- 1938January 31, 1938 to February 18, 1939
- 1950February 17, 1950 to February 5, 1951
- 1962February 5, 1962 to January 24, 1963
- 1974January 23, 1974 to February 10, 1975
- 1986February 9, 1986 to January 28, 1987
- 1998January 28, 1998 to February 15, 1999
- 2010February 14, 2010 to February 2, 2011
- 2022February 1, 2022 to January 21, 2023
- 2034February 19, 2034 to February 7, 2035
Tiger Ancient Zodiacs
Every sign someone born in the Year of the Tiger can be, one for each Western sun sign.
- Cougar: Aries Tiger, “Still, then instant, then already somewhere else.”
- Minotaur: Taurus Tiger, “Enormous strength, and a maze built to hold it.”
- Lynx: Gemini Tiger, “Sees straight through you, and rarely mentions it.”
- Flamingo: Cancer Tiger, “Gives its colour away and stands in water nothing else can.”
- Hippogriff: Leo Tiger, “The impossible combination, walking around perfectly fine.”
- Woodpecker: Virgo Tiger, “Precision applied with genuinely alarming force.”
- Panther: Libra Tiger, “Smooth black surface, and the pattern is still under there.”
- Wolverine: Scorpio Tiger, “Small enough to ignore, and it takes the kill anyway.”
- Roc: Sagittarius Tiger, “Arrives like weather and leaves the map redrawn.”
- Panda: Capricorn Tiger, “A predator's body kept on a monk's schedule.”
- Stingray: Aquarius Tiger, “Peaceful by choice, armed by design.”
- Shark: Pisces Tiger, “Feels the heartbeat before it sees the animal.”