One cell of 144
Pisces + Year of the Rat
Two calendars cross at your birth date. This is the cell where Pisces meets the Year of the Rat, and the animal that lives in it.
Answer first
What animal is a Pisces born in the Year of the Rat?
A Pisces born in the Year of the Rat is the Vampire Squid. The month and day set the Pisces half, the birth year sets the Rat half, and the crossing points at one cell in a grid of 144. Read the Vampire Squid for the full reading of that cell.
The two halves
What each calendar brings
The Pisces half
Pisces holds February 19 to March 20, mutable Water under Jupiter. You absorb what the room is feeling. The boundary between you and the water around you is thinner than most people's, and it is where your gift comes in. Read Pisces in the Western wing.
The Rat half
The Rat opens the twelve-year cycle and runs in a trine with the Dragon and the Monkey, the quick and inventive third of the wheel. You find the way in that nobody posted. Recent Rat years are 1996, 2008 and 2020. Read the Year of the Rat.
The crossing
What Pisces and the Rat make together
Pisces brings a boundary thin enough to feel everything through. The Rat year brings the wit that finds the unposted door. One animal holds both, and its name is the Vampire Squid.
You feed quietly on what the crowded water rejected, and you have never once needed the bright, contested current to eat well.
The Rat runs in a trine with the Dragon and the Monkey. Held to the same Pisces season, those years give the Whale Shark and the Dumbo Octopus, the two crossings whose engines run closest to yours.
The boundary
Born near the boundary?
The Chinese year does not turn on January 1. It turns at the lunar New Year, somewhere between late January and mid February, so a birthday in those weeks can belong to the animal before this one. The year finder checks the real date for any year you give it.
Common questions
Questions about this crossing
Is the Vampire Squid the same as being a Pisces?
Pisces is half of it. The Vampire Squid is the specific crossing of Pisces with the Year of the Rat, one cell out of 144. Two people can share a Sun sign and carry different animals, because the birth year changes the second half.
What if I was born in January or February of a Rat year?
The Chinese year turns at the lunar New Year, which lands between late January and mid February. A birthday in those weeks can belong to the previous animal, so the year finder checks the real boundary before the grid names your crossing.
Which crossings share the Vampire Squid's trine?
The Rat runs with the Dragon and the Monkey. Held to the same Pisces dates, those years give the Whale Shark and the Dumbo Octopus, the two animals whose instincts sit closest to the Vampire Squid's.
One step away
Neighboring crossings
Or start over at the full 12 by 12 grid, or read how the crossing works.