What Chinese Zodiac Is 1973? Year of the Water Ox

When the 1973 Water Ox year starts and ends

The 1973 Water Ox year began at Lunar New Year on February 3, 1973 and lasted until January 22, 1974, the day before the next new year. Anyone born between January 1 and Feb 3 1973 therefore belongs to the Water Rat year that started in 1972, while someone born in early 1974, up to Jan 22, is still a Water Ox. 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 Ox combination also falls in 2033, sixty years apart, because five elements and twelve animals realign only once in each sixty-year cycle. Lunar New Year 1973 fell on a Saturday, while the Western Sun was in Aquarius.

Water Ox personality

Patient, realistic and quietly insightful, the Water Ox understands feelings better than most Oxen. The Ox's Earth contains Water, which tradition reads as intuition shaped into practical judgement. People born in this year often listen before acting and work well in teams. Feelings dammed up too long are the usual caution; regular honest talk keeps them flowing. Their calm often settles anxious friends.

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.

1973 in numerology and the twelve-year cycle

In numerology the year's digits reduce to 2, the number of partnership, patience and diplomacy, and a 2 year is traditionally read as one for cooperation rather than solo pushes. The digits of 1973 add up to 20, which reduces to 2. In the twelve-year cycle the Ox is the second animal, earthly branch Chou, with Earth as its fixed element and Yin polarity. The year element is Water, and in the five-element cycles earth controls Water. The year before was the Water Rat and the year after is the Wood Tiger.

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