Each month, Nathaniel prepares a comprehensive Chinese horoscope for readers of Horoscope magazine. To find your Chinese birth sign, first search for your date of birth in the table below. Then you can read your Horoscope for the month by clicking on the link next to your Chinese birth sign.

Nathaniel also prepares an interesting article on aspects related to oriental horoscopes and other mystical Chinese arts, which is reproduced below. - The Editor.

JULY begins with the Dragon Moon, the 5th Moon month in the old Chinese calendar, cruising towards her Last Quarter on the 4th. The 6th Moon month, the Lotus Moon, is New on the 12th, climbs to her First quarter on the 18th, and is Full on the 26th.

In a custom bound culture like that of ancient China, even the most mundane activities were scheduled for particular days of particular months. Dipping back into Tun Li Ch’en’s book, a chronicle of the customs of old Peking titled ‘Yen Ching Sui Shih Chi,’ or a ‘Record of the Annual Seasons at Yen Ching,’ he records that the 6th day of the Lotus Moon was the day to gather the household’s collection of clothes and books together, carry them into the courtyard, shake the dust off and leave them out in the sun. July was the month of the greatest heat, and this was to prevent the appearance of moths and bookworms.

Throughout China the cultivation of certain flowers, such as the chrysanthemum, peony and rose became an art form. When these blooms came into season, families would travel to the areas famed for their displays to view them. The Lotus Moon was the time the lotus blossomed, a plant sacred in both Buddhism and Taoism. The Lotus grows in lakes and ponds, its roots in the mud at the bottom, its broad leaves lying on top of the water, and its highly fragrant flowers manifesting like coloured stars. It magically reconciles and unites the Elements of Earth, Water and Air.

The Shih Ch’a Hai or ‘Lake of Ten Temples,’ was famed for its lotuses. As the Lotus Moon began, crowds of men and women gathered on the north bank of the Ch’ien Hai, the ‘Front Lake.’ Tun Li Ch’en becomes poetical describing the scene: At the time when the flowers are blossoming, the scenery along the northern bank section is most lovely. The green willows droop their streamers, women appear with bright coloured costumes and brilliant cosmetics, and the flowers shine in people’s faces, now concealed and now indistinctly apparent, until one knows not whether it is the people who are people, or the flowers which are flowers ... ’ (translated by Derk Bodde).

By Nathaniel.