What the 2021 Year of the Ox Has In Store for You – Oprah Mag

February 12, 2021 is the Lunar New Year, per the lunisolar calendars traditional in many Asian countries including China, Vietnam, and South Korea. The holiday of new beginnings, reunion dinners with loved ones, and Spring Festival celebrations in China also introduces the Year of the Metal Ox, marking the end of the Year of the Metal Rat. Those with an interest in Chinese zodiac animals may already know that some 2020 Rat predictions were just as unfortunate as the year turned out to be, and now, a new question looms: Will this Year of the Ox be lucky?

That can depend on a variety of individual factors. The compatibility of your personality with the traits of the Ox is affected by your own zodiac animal, according to Susan Levitt, professional astrologer, feng shui consultant, and author of Taoist Astrology. 2021 is also impacted by the fact that it's a metal year (metal is one of the five elements of the Chinese zodiac; more on this later). Also, you may want to nail down what "lucky" means to you.

What is the goal, what are you trying to do? Levitt says. And, does the energy of the Ox match with your personality or your energy?

Still, the Year of the Ox will impact us all in a few generally similar ways, according to both Levitt and Pocket Chinese Almanac authors and translators Joanna C. Lee and Ken Smith. Here's what they have to say about the meaning of the Year of the Ox, and a few predictions for what it has in store.

While Levitt is an astrologer and student of feng shui, Lee and Smith get their almanac predictions from a Hong Kong-based geomancer named Warwick Wong. Long practiced in his family, Wong's style of Chinese geomancy is a form of divination, or forecasting the future, that observes astronomical movements and what Smith describes as other atmospheric conditions. Wong then interprets how these impact our lives down on earth, and his daily readings offer whats lucky or unlucky to undertake (February 12 will be good for engagements or starting a business, but bad for rituals and paying out money). But Wong also gives Lee and Smith a general trajectory for what a given year will be like.

Basically, Lee says, "it's a holding pattern." Keep calm and carry on as best you can in 2021, but hold off on major moves if you're able. And in a note worth taking whether you believe in the zodiac or not, Lee relays that Wong says to "try not to be obsessive about following the news, because so much information is in the air." Essentially, preserve your energy and your spirit.

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Even to a skeptic, some of Wongs past predictions have felt eerily prescient. On the night before last years Lunar New Year EveJanuary 23, 2020New York Citys Museum of Chinese in America (MOCA) welcomed Lee and Smith for their annual talk on what the Metal Rat year would bring. MOCA president Nancy Yao Maasbach told OprahMag.com the prognosis was that by consensus, it was going to be a horrible year. Lee and Smith told the audience that Wong had two pieces of advice to share: Dont be argumentative and try to change anyones minds on matters, and find a safe place, and hide.

Given that the novel coronavirus had gripped Wuhan, China by late January, Maasbach realized that plenty of people in the Chinese-American community were already casting a concerned eye toward how both the lunar year and Gregorian calendar year would pan out in 2020. So she remembers shaking their words off. I am not superstitious, though I was growing up, Maasbach says. Im a God-fearing Christian woman, though it is such a Chinese thing thats in the back of my mind.

After the talk, Maasbach joined Lee and Smith for dinner three blocks from the museum. Barely an hour later, Nancy got a phone call, and we just lost her, Smith remembers. Shes saying, oh my god! Oh my god! and she ran out.

I threw the dinner money on the table and ran down the street in 3-inch heels, Maasbach recounts.

The Museum of the Chinese in America had been destroyed in a five-alarm fire.

Everyone was like, thats a harbinger, Maasbach says, and then it just proceeded to be this insane year.

It's not surprising that by both Maasbach and Smith's accounts, she avoided Lee and Smith's phone calls about their Year of the Ox predictions for awhile. Fortunately, it's set to be better than the lastor, at least, different. In this year's virtual MOCA talk, Smith said that according to Wong, planetary aspects have caused a "murkiness in the universe" that's clouding his ability to forecast more specifically. "2021 is the year to be prudent," Lee added.

How you'll feel about this steadfast Year of the Ox depends on how you relate to the Ox energy, Levitt says. "Hard work, duty, disciplinethats the ox, she says. Levitt says the theme of 2021's lunar year will be "build, build, build," following through on whatever projects you began in the Rat year. Stick to routines, and shy away from wild new methods and ideas.

"I'm happy to be solid and stable, plow the field and work diligently," says Levitt, who was born in the Year of the Sheep. "If you're a horse or a monkey, this isn't your kind of energy. Or if you're a tiger, you want to pounce on the new." Read Levitt's Year of the Metal Ox forecast for each zodiac animal on her website.

If you were born in the Year of the Ox, know that some Chinese superstition holds that it's not a lucky year for you. According to Lee, "It might not be the worst year, but its not the best." Though Smith adds, "Good things can happen with twice the intensity, and bad things will happen to you with twice the intensity as well." To attract good fortune, they recommend wearing red, traditionally considered a lucky color in China, keep a plant in your room, and try to maintain a positive mindset.

"2021 is a metal year of the five Taoist elements fire, earth, metal, water, and wood," Levitt writes in her guide. "In feng shui, the metal environment is clean, pristine, pared down, and shiny like metal." If you want to best prepare your home for the Year of the Metal Ox, she adds, "begin by cleaning your home, reduce clutter, and maintain tidiness all year round. The main focus is on the bedroom as hard-working oxen do best after peaceful sleep."

Notably, in traditional Chinese medicine, the metal element rules the lungsa body part that's been particularly vulnerable during the COVID-19 pandemic that rose in the Year of the Metal Rat. As such, Levitt says she'd advised clients to take care of their lungs when making her 2020 predictions back in 2019, and recommends quitting smoking if this year if you partake. "The big change for COVID will be on the new Moon in Leo that begins Fire Monkey lunar month on August 8," she writes on her site.

Overall, there's no bad news for the Year of the Ox. It's more like...less than exciting news, given that Levitt and Wong both see it as a time to take care of yourself and stay drama-free. But know that 2022's Year of the Tiger may bear out predictions of a new roaring '20s on the way.

"Tiger year is time to leap into the new," Levitt says. Until then, avoid impulsively pouncing on anything.

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What the 2021 Year of the Ox Has In Store for You - Oprah Mag