Every culture celebrates a new year - and chooses the cycle it uses to honor the changing of the times.
China uses the Lunar calendar to determine the New Year; Each year the holiday falls on the second new moon after the winter solstice on December 21. While each new year falls on a different date, they usually range sometime between January 21 and February 20.
This year the Chinese New Year comes mercifully early, falling on Sunday, January 22. I say ‘mercifully’, because the quality of this New Year will be so much different than the year we’ve just come through.
The quality of each Chinese New Year is based on their astrological system of assigning animals and their qualities to each year. There are 12 animals in the Chinese Zodiac and 5 qualities to each animal, so every year brings its animal with their own special quality. Every 12 years, the same animal returns, but only once every 60 years does that animal with its quality return.
This will be the year of the Water Rabbit, which hasn’t been seen since 1963.
The Water Rabbit is know for its gentleness, adaptability, and charm. Also, it is particularly able to ‘go with the flow’, making it a great mediator in tense situations. Rabbits want to snuggle, to create safety, and to be with family!
In contrast to the year we are leaving, the year of the water Tiger, this New Year bodes well for calm waters. Think of the roiling waters of the Tiger, surging, perhaps causing, certainly navigating, rapids of chaos and change. Some say this energy was particularly necessary to break us out of the enforced stagnation of Covid. But it’s been exhausting!
The waters available to us in this coming New Year will be more calm - think gentle pools versus rolling rapids - and you get the idea!
I know I’m ready…are you?
To honor the New Year, I’m offering a recorded online event on the Medicine Wheel: Portal to Purpose on January 21st.
And in February, the Way of the Oracle Academy™ is delighted to be offering our first-ever online webinar: An Introduction To Tarot.
Please join me as we hop to it in the New Year - in gentleness, compassion, and peace! And a little more Vitamin A from all those carrots :-).
