What Chinese Zodiac Is 1953? Year of the Water Snake

When the 1953 Water Snake year starts and ends

The 1953 Water Snake year began at Lunar New Year on February 14, 1953 and lasted until February 2, 1954, the day before the next new year. Anyone born between January 1 and Feb 14 1953 therefore belongs to the Water Dragon year that started in 1952, while someone born in early 1954, up to Feb 2, is still a Water Snake. The Chinese calendar is lunisolar, which is why the start date moves between January 21 and February 20 instead of staying on January 1. The same Water Snake combination also falls in 2013, sixty years apart, because five elements and twelve animals realign only once in each sixty-year cycle. Lunar New Year 1953 fell on a Saturday, while the Western Sun was in Aquarius.

Water Snake personality

Contemplative, intuitive and quietly persuasive, Water Snakes are among the sharpest readers of human motives. Water cools the Snake's Fire in the controlling cycle, turning intensity inward. Those born in this year often stay calm in a crisis and plan several moves ahead. Inner fire held too tightly can flare as moodiness, so exercise and honest talk are wise outlets.

Water is the element of winter, stillness and depth, and a Water year is traditionally said to give any animal intuition, flexibility and a gift for communication. Descriptions associate it with wisdom, empathy and the ability to find a way around obstacles rather than through them. Water-year people are often portrayed as perceptive listeners, diplomatic and quietly persuasive, able to sense the mood of a room before anyone speaks. The element is linked with reflection and with the unseen, so it adds an inward, thoughtful layer. Its shadow, in most readings, is drift: indecision, secrecy, and a tendency to take on the shape of whoever is nearby.

1953 in numerology and the twelve-year cycle

In numerology the year reduces to 9, the number of completion, generosity and letting go, and a 9 year is traditionally read as one of endings that clear space. The digits of 1953 add up to 18, which reduces to 9. In the twelve-year cycle the Snake is the sixth animal, earthly branch Si, with Fire as its fixed element and Yin polarity. The year element is Water, and in the five-element cycles water controls Fire. The year before was the Water Dragon and the year after is the Wood Horse.

In the traditional sexagenary count the year is called Gui-Si: Gui is the Water heavenly stem and Si is the Snake's earthly branch. Stems and branches alternate between yang and yin together, which is why yin stems only ever meet yin animals.