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The Chinese Year of the Ox and the Religious Symbol of theBull
 By Jo Hedesan. Published in Esoteric Coffeehousewww.esotericoffeehouse.com on 02 Feb 2009.
It is so bitterly cold outside, that it must be New Year’s Eve. Chinese New Year ishere, heralding the year of the Ox. So I thought I’d switch gears a bit and analyze theimage of the Ox to get an insight as to what this symbol means and what we canexpect from an “ox year”.Dictionary tells us that the Ox is a castrated version of the Bull (1). In other words, itis a bull whose wild, unpredictable energy has been converted to useful, manageablestrength. Therefore, I will proceed by taking a look at the religious image of the bullto decipher its general meaning.Today, we associate bulls with energizing drinks, company logos, the astrological signand rising financial markets. Chances are, unless you live on a farm, there will be veryfew instances in your life where you would actually meet a bull. Probably the only places that can still give you an idea of the force and stamina of the bull are rodeosand Spanish bullfighting. Therefore, we can only imagine the type of religious awethat this animal exercised in the early days of human history. The bull was an imageof brute, untamable force that could destroy anything or anyone in its path. Thus, itwas one of the first, and most pervasive religious symbols of mankind.The bull first appears on the prehistoric cave paintings of Lascaux in France, and mostscholars accept that the images implied a cult of the bull (2). During the High Neolithic period, stylized bulls appear on pottery from the so-called Taurus Mountainsin southern Turkey (3). In Sumerian-Assyrian culture, god Gugalana, the “Bull of Heaven”, is slain by hero Gilgamesh; the deity was no doubt associated with theTaurus constellation (4). The bulls are also prominent in Egyptian and Minoan Greek culture. The cult of the Apis bull was widespread in ancient Egypt, being associatedwith the slain god Osiris (5). The bull also figured prominently in the religion of ancient Crete. The famous myth of the Cretan Labyrinth and the Minotaur must be a pale recollection of an earlier bull-cult. The Minotaur, the half-bull half-humancreature destroyed by Greek hero Theseus, appears to have embodied the underworldgod Minos, the archetypal king of Crete. Significantly, Minos was the offspring of thelove between virgin Europa and Zeus in the shape of a bull god (6).Classical Greece and Rome, which preferred anthropomorphic gods, relegated the bullcult to the background, although this was echoed in mythology. Yet it is interesting tonote that in Late Antiquity, the bull-cult seems to have made a come-back. First it wasthe Orphic myth of Dionysius-Zagreus, the horned child-god slain by Titans (7). Thenit was the powerful Mithraic religion, which at one time was in competition withChristianity for the hearts and minds of the postclassical world. Mithras wascelebrated as ‘the slayer of the bull’ and his worship included sacrificing bulls in acircus called
taurobolium
(8). Following the advent of Christianity, however, thedivine bull not only decreased in importance, but it began to be associated with thedevil. The classical image of the devil, red and horned, springs to mind. I will not deal
 
with this transformation, but it had to do with the underworld associations of the bull,the wildness of the Dionysian cult and the general rejection of animal deities.After this sketch of bull beliefs found mainly in the Mediterranean basin, I should goa little further in deciphering the symbolism behind the bull figure. As I have alreadymentioned, the bull was usually associated with the earth and particularly theunderworld. Osiris, Minos, the Minotaur and the slain Dionysus were all gods of theunderworld. Even more significantly, they were dying gods. Deities associated with bull-worship were killed, mostly through brutal dismembering, and were revivedusually through female agency. The sacrificing of the bull, witnessed in many culturesand still performed in corridas, was hence a re-enactment of the slaying of the earthdivinity.Thus, the underworld bull can be seen as the dynamic power at the core of the earth.He was imagined to cause earthquakes through his angry roar (9).In his more benignform, he was also the fertile force that intercoursed with the virgin goddess. The bloodspilled through his sacrifice was a sperm-like creative principle that bestowed newlife. It is likely that the ancient peoples took the spluttering of sacrificial blood on theground as literally fertilizing the earth. For instance, in the Zoroastrian Bundahishn,the killing of the sacrificial bull brought forth the first plants (10). In ancient Athens,an ox was sacrificed to end drought and dearth (11). Thus, the death of the bull-godwas a guarantee of renewal. The restorative power of the bull’s blood is recalled bythe Spaniards that still drink a ‘sangre de toro’ (bull blood) wine and by the Red Bull brand.Such a powerful, fertilizing force was often unpredictable and unfriendly to man.Therefore, it must have been an early dream for man to control and harness this force.A telling story is that of Theseus, who prior to coming to slay the Minotaur, catchesand tames the destructive bull of Marathon. It was the transformation of the bull intoan ox that embodied mankind’s dream. In the ox, human beings channeled the fire of the bull by directing his force to agriculture or transport. Unfortunately, in the process,the ox became a pale image of the once fearsome bull, hence the general demise of reverence to him. Yet behind the apparent peacefulness and obedience of the ox stilllies the almighty strength of the bull’s blood.In light of this analysis, I will summarize what I would expect from a Year of the Ox.I would see the year as being one of potentiality, just as the ox represents the subdued power hidden inside the earth. The ox contains the force of the bull in an occult way.There may be small ‘earthquakes’ betraying the Bull’s presence, but for the most parthe will hide behind the curtain. Hence I would expect an ox year to be the ferment of things to come, ‘cooking’ things that will spring forth later. This would then be a low-key, apparently peaceful year where the seeds of future events would be sown. Let usnot forget that the Taurus sign is a spring sign: a time of budding creation.
References
 (1)
Cambridge Dictionaries Online
. Ox. Online. Available at:http://dictionary.cambridge.org/define.asp?key=56821&dict=CALD. Accessed on 31Jan 2009.
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