Born in 2012

What 2012 carries

From the community: Charismatic, ambitious, pioneering, energetic, lucky. Can be domineering, impulsive, prideful, or restless.

From the year: Adaptable, quick, flexible, and able to adjust to different situations. Possesses self-restraint, generosity, magnanimity, and a protective spirit, full of bravery.

The community's Earth controls the year's Water. This is the pressed position: the Dragon Spirit Guardian's character sets the terms and the year's element concedes them, so the traits below run stronger here than in the community's other years, with less to temper them.

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

All of that is about being born in 2012. 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.

2012 with the years around it

Every year from 2000 to 2024, read against 2012. 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 2012 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.

• 2017— the Eagle Spirit Guardian,secret friend
• 2008— the Whale Spirit Guardian,three-harmony
• 2016— the Monkey Spirit Guardian,three-harmony
• 2006— the Wolf Spirit Guardian,opposing axis
• 2011— the Cat Spirit Guardian,harm

The other Water (+) year in the Dragon Spirit Guardian's cycle

A community turning every twelve years against an element turning every ten means a signature repeats every sixty. 2012 and 1952 are the two years in this catalogue that share one: the same Dragon Spirit Guardian, the same Water (+) 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 2012?

2012 belongs to the Dragon Spirit Guardian, the community of power, with Earth as its own element. The year's element pillar is Water (+), which is the part that changes: the community returns every twelve years but the element turns on a ten-year cycle, so 2012 reads differently from 1952 and 1964.

What element is 2012?

Water (+) — Adaptable, quick, flexible, and able to adjust to different situations. Possesses self-restraint, generosity, magnanimity, and a protective spirit, full of bravery. That is the year pillar. It sits alongside the Earth the Dragon Spirit Guardian carries in its own right, and the two together are what make 2012 a different reading from every other year of this community.

I was born in January 2012. 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 2011 and to the Cat 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 2012?

2017 (Eagle Spirit Guardian), 2008 (Whale Spirit Guardian), 2016 (Monkey Spirit Guardian) — the secret friend first, then the trine. 2006 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.