What it means
Legend has the Rat winning first place in the great race by riding on the Ox's back and jumping off at the finish line, and that story says a lot about how the sign is read: clever, practical and not above using a shortcut. Rats tend to be sociable and charming, with a sharp eye for what things are worth. They like security, so they often build up savings, skills and contacts long before they need them.
Strengths
Quick wit, resourcefulness, charm, good instincts about money and a knack for spotting chances other people miss.
Challenges
Restlessness, a tendency to hoard, gossip, and a talent for angles that can tip over into scheming.
Rat years and dates
A Rat year starts at Lunar New Year, not on January 1. Rat years since 1950: Metal Rat, January 28, 1960 to February 14, 1961; Water Rat, February 15, 1972 to February 2, 1973; Wood Rat, February 2, 1984 to February 19, 1985; Fire Rat, February 19, 1996 to February 6, 1997; Earth Rat, February 7, 2008 to January 25, 2009; Metal Rat, January 25, 2020 to February 11, 2021. The next Rat year, a Water Rat, starts on February 11, 2032. If you were born in January or February, check the start date: a birthday before it belongs to the year before.
Element
Every Rat year also carries one of five elements, which cycle so the same element and animal meet only once every 60 years. A Rat born in 1984 is a Wood Rat. The Rat also has a fixed element of its own, Water, and is a yang sign.
Best and hardest matches
Traditional Chinese astrology puts the twelve animals in four groups of three, and in six opposite pairs. The Rat gets on most easily with the Dragon and the Monkey, the other two in its group. Its opposite is the Horse, six years apart, which is said to bring the most friction.
How Cosmic Array reads it
Cosmic Array reads your animal next to your Western Sun sign. Together they give your Primal Zodiac, one of 144 combinations: a Gemini Sun born in a Rat year, for example, is a Squirrel. The Architect blueprint shows your animal, its element and your Primal Zodiac, worked out from the exact Lunar New Year date, and reads them against the rest of your chart.