photo by Terry Fitch of Wild Horse Freedom Federation
Its “Feel Good Sunday” and the Year of the Horse is about to go official so it’s a great time to share information on how the Chinese define the year and the personality traits of those who are born during this Equine influenced time period.
Probably more than you care to know, but none the less, it makes for some interesting reading.
According to the cycle of the five elements in the Chinese Zodiac, 2014 is the Year of the Wooden Horse, which is regarded as a year of quick victories, unexpected adventures, and surprising romances.
Five Elemental Signs Start Dates, End Dates:
Metal horse 30 January 1930, 16 February 1931
Water horse 15 February 1942, 4 February 1943
Wood horse 3 February 1954, 23 January 1955
Fire horse 21 January 1966, 8 February 1967
Earth horse 7 February 1978, 27 January 1979
Metal horse 27 January 1990, 14 February 1991
Water horse 12 February 2002, 31 January 2003
Wood horse 31 January 2014, 18 February 2015
Fire horse 17 February 2026, 5 February 2027
Chinese people believe the horse is one of the most important creatures in the world for mankind to befriend.
The elegant horse symbolizes a strong character with aspiration for straightforward momentum and goals. A horse is known to be one of the quickest animals to learn independence: for example, a foal can stand up less than 10 minutes after birth and begins to walk almost immediately after that.
It is believed that those who are born in the Year of the Horse usually have superior manners, and they pay more attention to their appearance in terms of style and accessories. They tend to be generous and like extravagance.
Generally, they are free-spirited, liberated, and always on the move, yearning for the freedom to roam. Their attitude toward everything is positive and straightforward. As independent as the horse, they don’t like to be suppressed and they don’t easily accept help from others.
Usually open-minded, it is easy for them to make a wide range of friends. Their eloquence and talent of persuasion make them natural leaders. Being cheerful and kind, they can also get along easily with other people. Gifted with insightful comprehension, they often seem to know what others are thinking.
People born in the Year of the Horse have a wide variety of interests, such as drama, music, sports, etc. They are usually very athletic and sports-oriented.
Being highly diligent and creative, they often progress directly towards their goals. They learn new skills easily and quickly. Their personality makes them excellent business people who can take on an amazing volume of tasks and complete them with equally amazing accuracy.
However, once difficulties and frustrations arise, they can be impatient and tend to shift direction easily. They dislike doing things alone and are most satisfied when they are embraced, acclaimed, and admired by others on a team.
Horse people are high-spirited and witty. At critical moments, they have a flair for making the best of a situation, which makes them quite impressive.
Furthermore, they can easily acquire wealth but not necessarily keep it because they are always changing their minds and strategies.
Due to their open and loose nature, they are not, however, good at keeping secrets. Another significant shortcoming is that they are inclined to invade others’ privacy.
As impulsive as a horse can be, they like to try everything without thinking and often fall short. Fortunately, they are optimistic people and never surrender to feelings of failure. Therefore, they are able to eventually achieve their goals.
Generally speaking, they have incredible talents and know how to respond quickly and deal with things effectively. Since they are quite aware of their innate talents, they are often arrogant, selfish, and ambitious, and have blatant disregard for others. Thus, they will likely not feel sorry once they get what they want, even when it’s at others’ expense. This personality trait is their biggest stumbling block.
As for romance, they can express their sentiments directly. Often emotional, their feelings are easily hurt, yet they can sacrifice everything for true love. This characteristic is one of the factors that make their romantic relationships fragile.
Due to the seemingly contradictory nature of the personality traits of this sign, Horse people can be endearing and at the same time infuriating.
The Wood Horse is fortunate, though, in that this “wood” element balances the best and the worst characteristics of Horse people. The element of wood makes them more stable so that they are less capricious and less prone to emotionality than their other Horse counterparts.
And that’s the story surrounding the Year of the Horse.
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Straight from the Horse's Heart 
There is an excellent slot machine game named “Fire Horse.” (Its excellent because I WON on it!!)
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2014 – The Year of the Yang Wood Horse
Posted by admin on Jan 11, 2014 in Animals, Featured, Feng Shui New Year, Five Elements, Your Life | 63 comments
By Karen Abler Carrasco, WSFS Consultant, Mentor and Teacher
There might not be a bigger shift of energies in the entire 60 year wheel of Chinese astrology than this one coming up–the shift from two Water years of deep introspection to the fast-paced spurt of extroverted forward propulsion that the Wood Horse brings. Hold on to your hats, folks, and realize that you won’t be able to, nor will you want to, slow your horses in the New Year ahead!
This will be a promethean year, the Beginning of all beginnings, arriving around January 31st to February 4th, 2014. Full of uplift, optimism and compelling inspiration, we will be guided into purposeful action of the most elegantly simple and powerfully fruitful kind. After two years of feeling every revelation of corruption in the dark as if it was scouring our subconscious insides and wringing us dry of watery emotion, we are READY for this change! Light, hope and clarity of vision gallop in. Emerge from your cocoons, everybody, here we goooooo!
Because this will be such a big change of energetic experience for us, it will help to review here how the cycle of the sacred Five Elements, or Phases, have set us up for this shift. In that cycle, Wood feeds Fire, Fire’s ash creates Earth, Earth’s compression reveals gems of Metal, and Metal collects and holds Water, which nourishes the Wood to start the cycle all over again. The natural laws of these five elements are actually working in multiple ways throughout Nature, our bodies, our psychologies and the energetic movements of all things here on this planet. In these movements, there are cycles within cycles, one of which is the cycle of birth, growth, disintegration and death, or the void that comes after old life and before new life.
We have just been traveling through that void, in two Water years, which immersed us in a descending place of degeneration, dissolution and chaos, a time when our internal world of formless spirit and emotions held total sway over every attempt at external control or order. For most of us, it was an unsettling time of letting go of many things, either voluntarily or forcefully, a time of deep soul searching, with gradual or sudden destabilization in many areas of family and livelihood. There was a profound search for a return to a spiritual basis for daily living. This all had the effect of highlighting an individual’s isolation and powerlessness within a seemingly random and careless society. Not that outright rebellion and outcry didn’t happen, globally as well as internally. The 2012 Yang Water Dragon year saw to that, with its critical promptings of social responsibility and heroism, and this Yin Water Snake year that followed delved even deeper into the most hidden caves of stagnant dysfunctionality and corruption on all levels.
The good and great news is that we have completed 5 years of the degenerative part of the cycles–that of the harvested, decomposing Earth, compressing and eliminative Metal, and dissolving, settling out, cleansing Water. We now emerge into the generative cycles–powerful, bursting buds of Wood’s new growth fueling the joyful outreach and passions of Fire and the beginnings of Earth’s fruitful harvests.
So, that’s the Wood part of what’s coming. Now to turn our gaze to the animal symbol of Horse. This sprouting upward rush of Wood energy will find its perfect release into the impulsive and passionate nature of the Yang Horse, whose native element is Fire. The Horse energy inspires powerful INTUITION and an indomitable surge towards freedom in every aspect of life. This is a year to follow your inner voice like never before, for it will have a universal cosmic ch’i within it. Higher guidance is with us every step of the way. Reach for the sky, call up your vision, fuel your plans with vision boards and creativity, find a fresh path and pace yourself well. This yang Horse year has the potential to channel the powerful new upthrust of Wood’s Ch’i through the Horse’s Heart energy of Fire and into every project we start, every desire we reach for. It will keep our eager plans from being dominated by too much “head” and not enough “heart.”
It may be quite challenging to trust that we have this absolutely new, purified and hopeful energy to build on now. Our hearts have had to endure a gauntlet of deconstruction through two Metal and two Water years, but the fiery Horse is about to change all of that. Within the extroverted “Green Horse” year, we will not only branch out with new growth, but we will be able to stoke the Fire element of love in every area of life. Follow your intuition fearlessly, as it is both the horse’s main attribute which preserves its freedom and powerful health and it is Wood’s primary talent for stretching into the unknown future. Reach out with irrepressible faith to a new level of social communion and mutual support. Trust every impulse to embrace a revitalized and renewed sensitivity for the pleasures this earthly dimension has to offer.
Step up and out of any old clutter, stored memories, should-have-dones or regrets. The time to deal with that is over for now. Untangle your thoughts quickly and get clear on what it is that you truly desire in this lifetime. Your trusty steed is here, full of vibrant health and tremendous stamina. It should be quite a fast ride, so grab a fistful of mane, hang on to the reins, cast your old cares to the wind and let out a whoop of delight–Yeeehaaw! Upward and onward we thrive! May we all be blest abundantly as we hold each other closer in the circle of health and new life the Wood Horse year brings.
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That was fun and interesting – thanks.
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let’s pray that this is not only the Year OF the Horse but the Year FOR the Horse 🙂
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Here are some more FRIENDS of the Horse.
PHYSICIANS COMMITTEE FOR RESPONSIBLE MECICINE
Horses are safe from slaughter and human health is safe from the dangers of horse meat – for now. But despite a recent promising development in this ongoing battle, the slaughter of horses for food is still legal in the United States. We need your help to ban this practice forever
Please contact your elected officials today and urge them to pass the SAFE ACT.
https://secure2.convio.net/pcrm/site/Advocacy;jsessionid=97802362C74912EA446F73CECA8305A1.app274a?pagename=homepage&page=UserAction&id=669&autologin=true
A provision in Congress’s current spending bill would effectively prevent the horse slaughter industry from operating in the United States, at least for another year. The bill prohibits the U.S. Department of Agriculture from funding the inspection of horse slaughterhouses, which cannot legally operate without federal inspectors. Although this bill represents a major achievement, it leaves room for the possibility of allowing horse slaughterhouses to operate in the future. We need to keep the pressure on Congress to pass a permanent ban.
The bipartisan Safeguard American Food Exports (SAFE) Act outlaws the slaughter of American horses both at home and abroad as well as the sale of horse meat to, from, and within the United States. If passed, it would curtail the grave threat to human health horse meat poses. Please urge your members of Congress to pass the SAFE Act and keep toxic horse meat out of the food supply: Call then e-mail their offices today.
After contacting your elected officials, please forward this message to your friends.
As always, we deeply appreciate your support. Please feel free to contact me at ngittell@pcrm.org with any questions.
Very truly,
Noah Gittell
Director of Government Affairs
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Fun – I’m a fire rooster in the Chinese zodiac. 🙂
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Well I am a Wood Horse based on my year of birth but I’m only about 20% as described here.
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