Yay! The ferocious Year of the Water Tiger is almost complete! Sunday, January 22, 2023 marks the beginning of a hopeful and gentle Water Rabbit year. In the grand cycle of All There Is, it is the Lunar Calendar of the Chinese New Year (not the spreadsheet style Gregorian Calendar of Western cultures) that corresponds to the energy/chi of the natural cycles in our world. While greeting a loved one with a kiss at the beginning of a new year is a hopeful gesture of a loving year to come, in most cultures celebrating the prosperity and health of friends and family when a cycle begins sometimes gets undervalued.
In a traditional Chinese New Year, it’s common to wish one’s family and even boss wealth and good fortune the first day of the new year. “Kung Hei Fat Choi” is the most common new year wish in Hong Kong. Kung Hei = congratulations. Fat Choi = making good fortune. Just as the resonance of our spoken words create good or unfortunate outcomes, the things we do or don’t do ”at the beginning” also influence the journey until the end. Here are just a few of the traditional Chinese New Year “taboos” so we don’t undo our good fortunes right at the start.
Whether or not you put stock into ”taboos” or “superstitions,” there’s no denying that the cycles of the world outside us, affect what’s going on inside us. If you doubt that, just consider how much more joints ache when a storm system is building or how consistent cloudy skies foster depression and create fatigue. And so we gratefully acknowledge the shift of the solar cycle into the gentle, peaceful energy of the rabbit.
Not being a Chinese astrologer, I rely on extensive internet reading to compile my new years posts. What I read this year has been hopeful and inspiring but extremely diverse, which apparently, is one of the attributes of a water rabbit year. Unlike the very specific predictions for last year‘s water tiger (male leaders exerting control, foundational shifts in family’s and dwellings) this year’s reading turned up more general and personal predictions based on introspection, good relationships and hope.
Rabbits, who do no harm to others, are a symbol of peaceful fertility, for the most part. But they also have the connotation of being fearful and hiding in their holes when startled. The upcoming year’s outcomes are in our control: do we react emotionally and hide from fears or opportunities; do we freeze in our tracks and get run over (or passed by) when the unexpected comes our way; or do we retreat into our quiet sanctuary to contemplate the situation before engaging?
An overwhelming abundance of opportunities will be presented to us this year. Think stimulus and opportunity overload. How we handle them predicts our year. If we follow the wise side of rabbit, we don’t get overly emotional by the extreme choices but softly pad our way into our personal retreat to contemplate so we choose the best opportunity. We learn to prioritize and use good discernment for ourselves. If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed by the sheer number of choices in the grocery store and wound up walking out without buying anything, this is akin to the rabbit over-reacting and running to hide when it really needs to eat!
This year predicts the perfect time to know and master oneself through relationships. Everyone knows rabbits reproduce like crazy. To do this, they have to get along well with others and use diplomacy to get what they want. That said, it’s an excellent year to develop our communication, diplomacy and leadership skills. This has relevance to most aspects of our lives ranging from career to family to health. If you don’t yet know how to communicate with your own intimate body, how well can you really communicate with a totally different person? This is one GREAT way to think of learning tai chi and qigong. We learn to communicate with and lead our bodies into better health! Perfect year to delve into tai chi! (Try Traditional Sun 73 Tai Chi to go deep!)
The combination of water and rabbit energies also exert strong influence over our creativity. Water often represents emotions and is ever flowing, just as all inspired art flows out of the artist. Rabbit often uses new strategies in play, foraging and courtship. We are encouraged to embrace our creativity this year in new and unbounded ways. This could mean something as personal as starting a journal or learning to draw. Your creativity may be expressed in a new way by changing careers to something you love and creating a more fulfilling life. It’s possible to desire a change of wardrobe, social activities or even take up fly fishing as an expression of new creative energy. The point is to not just think about it, but actually do it; to allow this energy to flow through us even if learning to crochet seems silly to others. If we choose to stifle our creative
brains this year, it will most likely decrease the number of opportunities to play that come our way leaving us bitter and resentful.
If any or all of this seems weird to you, you’re not alone! I didn’t put much stock in any kind of astrology until I started comparing the yearly predictions to what took place in my own life after they were over. Now I’m wiser and read-up on the internet beforehand what the year may have in store so that I am prepared. Last year‘s Water Tiger predictions for upheavals in family and health crept up on me like a silent tiger at the very darkest end of the night with my dad suddenly having unexpected major health issues over the holidays that have shifted our family structure and individual lives quite significantly. Thankfully, I was mentally prepared and because of that was not shocked and stressed into illness like my unsuspecting brother. I’m quite pleased to say I’m currently riding the end of this tiger year well by hanging on loosely to stay relaxed and centered in myself so I don’t get bucked off and devoured by grief or stress.
Here’s last year’s blog post on the Year of the Water Tiger, in case you’d like to compare how your life measured up to the forecasts.
As always, no matter what the next cycle may bring, no matter what change we may witness in the world, it’s up to us to find our balance in an ever-changing reality. . . . . or is that multi-realities? To find or keep my personal alignment, I always turn to qigong and tai chi. In these quiet, personal sactuaries I can see the storm outside whirling but remain unaffected by it. The more we cultivate inner awareness, the more resilience we have to stand tall and stay flexible in the winds of change.
So. . . . The new year beckons us. . . . . Sing! Dance! Drum! Strum! Paint! Write! Knit! Carve! Build! Draw! Sail! Bake! Love! Visualize! Create! CREATE!! CREATE!!! To express yourself, know yourself and then be true to yourself and please, please, please don’t withhold the unique beauty that is you from the world! We’d love to have you join us in class, where we are ALL working on knowing ourselves better each and every session. 🐰☯️
To read in depth predictions for your specific birth sign, this website has some of the most insightful and in depth forecasts I’ve found: