New Moon, Year Of The Rooster 2017

January 27, 2017 — #YearoftheRooster2017, Chinese New Year, cock year, new moon in Aquarius

Rooster paper cut

Year of the Fire Cock 2017

The lunar year of the fire rooster begins today. In many parts of the world this is the most significant and superstitious time of the year.  The lunar calendar was widely used around the world before Pope Gregory of the Roman Catholic Church had his way with time keeping, creating the solar Gregorian calendar in 1582.  It has become the most widely used, but plenty of people are still on the lunar system.  Jewish calendars and Asian calendars are lunar, as they have been forever. Countries varied greatly in adopting the system:

Adoption of Gregorian Calendar
1582: Spain, Portugal, France, Italy,
Catholic Low Countries, Luxemburg, and colonies

1610: Prussia 1700: ‘Germany’, Swiss Cantons, Protestant Low Countries, Norway, Denmark 1873: Japan 1912: China, Albania
1584: Kingdom of Bohemia 1648: Alsace 1752: Great Britain and colonies 1875: Egypt 1915: Latvia, Lithuania
1682: Strasbourg 1753: Sweden and Finland 1896: Korea 1916: Bulgaria
1918: USSR, Estonia
1919: Romania, Yugoslavia
1923: Greece
1926: Turkey

Greek  and other Eastern orthodox churches celebrate Easter on the lunar calendar, which explains why it does not match the Roman Catholic date. When you look up your Chinese year on the placemat at the restaurant you may be in error because our western new year is never the same as the one in Asia.  Ours is January 1 every year.  Theirs falls between the end of January and the middle of February.  The significance of the animal of the year is considered to be a big deal to those who celebrate this holiday.  A change is expected in luck and finances, and much attention is given to enhancing both at this time.  Gifts of currency with symbols and pictures of the animal are given to increase good fortune.  Adjustments are made to the feng shui to make the most of the new energy that will flow.  You may not personally believe that astrology or calendars have any significance, but a very large part of the world’s population does believe it.  It can’t hurt to learn a little bit about it.  This is a time to reinvent whatever needs to be changed.

The year of the cock is not expected to be the lucky year for those born under the sign of the rooster themselves. Their trademark weaknesses, boastfulness and vanity, will get them into more trouble than usual this year.  Their active, talkative nature will cause problems. They will be challenged to put up or shut up, which is hard for them to handle. Everyone turning 60 this year is a fire rooster.  They include famous fire Roosters Dawn French, Donny Osmond, Martin Luther King III, Stephen Fry, Hans Zimmer, Dolph Lundgren, and Jools Holland.  This year the new moon in Aquarius begins the reign of the rooster over good luck and chance. I wish all my gentle readers a healthy, prosperous, and happy year.  I appreciate your presence here.