When looking at predictions for 2017 most people expect to find a list of countries with events that will happen in them throughout the year, but the truth is that astrology just defines a soft trend that pushes what already exists in one direction or another, so in practice the most important thing is to have a deep knowledge of the present.

For example, a person who lived all his life in Oklahoma and have a job that keeps him/her in contact with reality (police or journalist for example) could foretell Oklahoma events much better than Botswana's ones, even having the same astrological knowledge in both cases.

Someone would say that with so many information available on the net today, it should be possible to know what happens in every corner of the planet, and to a certain degree that's true, but is not the same as knowing the real situation of a country, it's not the same being in Dublin looking for a job than reading news about Ireland in a well paid office job in New York.

So what kind of worldwide predictions can chinese astrology give us for 2017? basically general trends about how things we have nearby could evolve and change along that time.

With that intention is that I made this table which combines the influence of the year of the Fire Rooster with each chinese solar sign, it's something very roughly done to keep things simple, but this way is much easier to understand:

		2017 year of the Fire Rooster (noticeable influences may begin as early as December 2016)
7/dic/16 6/Jan/17	discussions and unexpected news that require to act quickly Nervousness and economic problems It is best to take these days with calm and not try difficult things
4/feb/17	Effort and hard work solve problems from the previous month Easy to see who controls the situation and who don't the best month for beginning projects Fools will continue to discuss, smart people will work together fruitfully Working with seriousness and constancy to begin 2017 in a lucky fashion
6/Mar/17	What started well in January finds harder to advance Senseless fools will continue discussing, smart people just change the subject Things that at the beginning are promising, soon disappoint Extra clear and cold thinking brings success
5/apr/17	it isn't easy but it does move forward Things will move in reverse repeatedly Beware of feeling overwhelmed and be paralyzed try to see yourself in other's people situations
6/May/17	Things tend to improve things that work increases confidence and security need to compromise, not require the best problems with rivalries, jealousies and envies ambition with humility achieve success
6/jun/17	solutions to the problems of previous months expectations begin to fit with reality successes in economic and commercial areas Time for planning the future with new bases and new alliances This month we must use it to correct our course
8/jul/17	one advance less than imagined bureaucratic obstacles prevent getting everything that could be lack of patience can lead to hasty decisions Many reports and reproaches don't fix anything one must be pragmatic and move forward as much as possible
8/Aug/17	the general situation calms long term decissions are taken economy improvesas more material stability becomes apparent success is for those who can recognize the qualities of others very different from themselves
8/Sep/17 *	the economic situation continues to improve Seriousness and good ideas get problems under control what is planted this month will be fruitfull later fools speak to criticize while the smart move forward with innovation and think long term
9/oct/17 *	There will be complications and instability may occur random and unexpected things hold on to things that works things can change much in a short time This month you must be careful, it's easy to lose control
8/nov/17 *	things improve a little compared to the previous month Beware of falling in pessimism smart people will trust in people very different from themselves need to work really hard to move forward with projects saddest and most painful things than in previous months
7/dic/17 *	this can be a chaotic month some do too much and others too little bureaucratic conflicts lead to serious problems Discussions between too different people success is whit people not influenced by disorder and bad companies
* NOTE it could happen that Fire Rooster influences begin to feel sooner than expected, and then trends for these months would correspond to 2016 and not 2017, see theory of chinese yearly sign influences feeling ahead of time.

So to make a prediction for a particular place in 2017, one should try to put these subtle trends next to everything we know about that place in question, it's especially useful if you know specific dates of events there, for example, when there will be elections, entries into force of certain laws, deadlines which expire for important issues...

With that very general trends you have to distinguish the moments when it seems more likely that "something will happen", and then for those times you would look at the position of the planets in relation to the Sun and other astronomical ephemeris, before, during, and after those days.

Then you have to look at which constellations those planets will be during these times, and last but not least, the phases of the moon, if it is increasing or decreasing, going up or down, getting closer or farther from the Earth...

And when these special astrological moments are isolated, a good trick is to look in the past and see what happened in similar astronomical moments in that place, and see how it affected the situation there, this way you can draw parallelisms which are often marked.

If I have time, before the beginning of the year of the Fire Rooster I will try to illustrate this method with some real examples.