This article is about the Chinese zodiac sign rat or mouse or rodent. First of all, this article is badly named. I named it rat because most people translate the sign as rat and I didn’t want anyone to get confused. I’m not sure why this sign is always called rat because the word 鼠 isn’t just rat. It’s any type of rodent. It can be mouse, hamster, gerbil, capybara, beaver, squirrel, ferret…just any kind of rodent. 鼠 or shu isn’t one animal but a type of animals. It’s rodent.

So, the rodent is a zodiac sign. You might have a 子 or a rodent in your chart. Maybe you are a rodent in your day pillar.

The rodent is the smartest animal in the zodiac. No one can outthink a rodent. The other thing about the rodent is that it’s always prepared. You’ve seen squirrels bury nuts for winter. They run around and gather everything up. They try their best to remember where every single nut they buried is based on positions to different trees. Sometimes they forget but, still, they remember a lot.

Mice also live in pantries. They like to eat dried goods. That’s why the rodent is the sign of midnight or the winter. It’s extremely cold. Rodents know how to survive in the extreme cold because they are always prepared. They know how to burrow and hide. In fact, they come out around midnight because they don’t want to be seen.

Beavers, I think, give us a pretty good picture of rodent behavior. Beavers are architectural masterminds. They can chew through a small tree in a matter of minutes. They set up their home using larger sticks. Then, they put smaller branches in between and pack that up with mud. They make the whole thing waterproof somehow but leave air holes so that they can breathe. The entryways into the dam are secret and are underwater but the inside is dry. This means that an animal that can’t switch from water to dry land will not be able to enter the nest. Once winter hits, the beavers just enjoy being in the nest. They have plenty of food stocked up and they just eat. I’ve seen a video of them inside. They look really happy.



So, rodents prepare! They’re always prepared! But they don’t actually like to move that much. These animals are not long distance travelers. They like to stick to what they know and where they know their food is.

I’ve seen my cat hunt several mice. She’s very fast. She’s actually faster than the mice but the mice have an advantage. They’re smaller so they can get behind or under things and hide out. However, there’s something really interesting that happens when the cat has the mouse cornered. When the mouse is trapped somewhere without a place to hide, it doesn’t actually try to run. It just stays there. It stays there with its eyes wide open, body not moving a single millimeter. It’s completely frozen.

I’ve seen this happen again and again. I’m not sure why this happens. Is the mouse holding still so as to not bait the cat with more movement when it knows that it can’t win? Maybe the mouse is just tired? But it’s in such a life threatening situation. Maybe the mouse is frozen in fear?

The conclusion that I’ve come to is that the mouse is thinking. Other animals that aren’t rodents might just try to bolt away. That’s foolish because the cat will definitely get it. The rat is thinking and, while it’s thinking, the cat sits down. Cats aren’t actually that diligent and are quite lazy. They like to sit when nothing is happening. While the cat is sitting, the mouse looks for opportunity. Only when it sees opportunity does it bolt.

So, that’s the game. What have we observed about rodents so far? They like to prepare. They don’t like to leave a food source. They also like to think and they’ll think in one place right out in the open near a larger predator. They’ll think in situations that cause other animals to flip out. When they see an opportunity, they’ll run towards it with the speed of a thousand horses.

Rodents are fast. I’ve literally never seen a mouse walk. I’ve only seen it run. Even when it’s eating, it’s quite twitchy. It has one ear pointed out and it’s ready to run.



These are all fantastic survival skills. If you have 子 somewhere in your chart, maybe you are extremely perceptive. Maybe you move towards opportunities quickly and can recognize them immediately.

The character 子 is actually a picture of a baby with arms stretched out. So cute, right? What does a baby have to do with midnight or with winter? Aren't there fewer babies born in the winter?

子 is just new beginning. 甲子 is associated with pregnancy and having new life sprout from inside of you. The second rodent pillar, 丙子 or fire rodent, is about hunger. If you are pregnant, you have to eat. If you have a new idea, you have to feed it. Fire rodent is a passionate mouse who is hungry for more.

The third rodent pillar is 戊子 or earth rodent. This one is about the difficulty of starting something new. It’s like a mouse burrowing into dirt or frozen earth. It doesn’t know what it will hit. 庚子 or metal rodent is about growth and about receiving help. The difficulty from before pays off. Finally, 壬子 or water rodent is water rooted in water. It’s associated with the first born child.

Rodent people are original thinkers. When you’re nurturing a new idea, it feels small like a tiny mouse. New ideas also have the energy of mice. They don’t like to stay still. They want to be fed and they’re twitchy. They’re curious and want to be given more information. New ideas bloom when given opportunity the way a mouse shoots towards a hole. They always do like to hide a bit because they sense that they’re not quite ready for full evaluation.

Maybe you’re a rodent person and you just love to come up with new ideas. You don’t always feel ready to share the ideas right away and like to prepare, prepare, and prepare. Maybe you’ve felt the energy of rodents at midnight going on some late night research spiral. It’s not the time to put any idea into practice. It’s the time to get absolutely obsessed with things that never occurred to you before, when epiphanies strike like lightning bolts.

Rodents are thinkers and their energy is sudden. They’re known to be geniuses for a reason! No one can outsmart a rodent person not just in terms of strategy but in terms of freshness. When I talk to people whose day pillars are rodent, I often feel like I can’t keep up with the conversation. Their minds just work so fast. They reference everything because they know everything. And, oh, can they read a room.

The only thing that rodents can struggle with is implementation. Remember, this is the sign of ingenuity. Sometimes, rodent people hide their ideas like mice hiding in a wall. They’re really shy. For implementation, we’ll have to look at the next sign which is the cow.