Born in 1971

What 1971 carries

From the community: Generous, sincere, peaceful, indulgent, fortunate. Can be naive, over-trusting, or complacent.

From the year: Intelligent and insightful, able to captivate others with charm and grace. Polished in appearance, seeking attention and affection.

The year's Metal feeds the community's Water. The generosity runs outward — this birth year spends itself on what the Elephant Spirit Guardian is trying to build, which is productive and quietly costly, and it is the combination most likely to need a rest it does not ask for.

The community itself is written out in full on the Elephant Spirit Guardian's page — character, love, work and the communities it is bound to.

All of that is about being born in 1971. What a year does to the people living through it is a separate reading on a separate clock — and, unlike the community above, it does not move at the lunar new year. That is the Year scale of Time Analysis, one of five.

1971 with the years around it

Every year from 1959 to 1983, read against 1971. Twenty-five consecutive years contain every community at least twice and never with the same element behind it, which is the clearest demonstration of the thing these pages keep asserting: the community comes back, the reading does not.

These readings are the first of the board's four layers — the birth years alone — and it carries weight 0.30 of the result. The other three read the two charts rather than the two communities, so a strong or difficult year layer is where a reading starts, not where it lands.

The birth years 1971 is bound to

Nobody goes looking for a community. They go looking for the person born in a particular year, so the four relations worth naming are given here as the nearest year that carries each.

• 1974— the Lion Spirit Guardian,secret friend
• 1975— the Cat Spirit Guardian,three-harmony
• 1967— the Goat Spirit Guardian,three-harmony
• 1965— the Snake Spirit Guardian,opposing axis
• 1968— the Monkey Spirit Guardian,harm

The other Metal (-) year in the Elephant Spirit Guardian's cycle

A community turning every twelve years against an element turning every ten means a signature repeats every sixty. 1971 and 2031 are the two years in this catalogue that share one: the same Elephant Spirit Guardian, the same Metal (-) behind it. What separates them is everything they are read against — the people either year is likely to be seated beside were born sixty years apart.

Frequently asked

Which Spirit Guardian rules 1971?

1971 belongs to the Elephant Spirit Guardian, the community of abundance, with Water as its own element. The year's element pillar is Metal (-), which is the part that changes: the community returns every twelve years but the element turns on a ten-year cycle, so 1971 reads differently from 1959 and 1983.

What element is 1971?

Metal (-) — Intelligent and insightful, able to captivate others with charm and grace. Polished in appearance, seeking attention and affection. That is the year pillar. It sits alongside the Water the Elephant Spirit Guardian carries in its own right, and the two together are what make 1971 a different reading from every other year of this community.

I was born in January 1971. Is this still my year?

Probably not. The cycle turns at Lunar New Year rather than on 1 January, so a birth in January or the first days of February usually belongs to 1970 and to the Wolf Spirit Guardian. Roughly one birth in eight sits on the wrong side of that line. Add your month and day on the board and it settles the question rather than guessing.

Which birth years are most compatible with 1971?

1974 (Lion Spirit Guardian), 1975 (Cat Spirit Guardian), 1967 (Goat Spirit Guardian) — the secret friend first, then the trine. 1965 sits on the opposing axis. Those are branch relations only, which is the first of four layers the board reads and carries weight 0.30 of the result; the other three read the two charts rather than the two communities, so a clash here is a starting point and not a conclusion.