What To Expect In The Year of the Yang Water Tiger
Happy Lunar New Year to you all and Welcome to the Year of the Yang Water Tiger!
While the Western calendar is based only on the solar year, the Chinese Lunar calendar is based on the sun, moon and natural seasons. One of the many gifts of the Chinese calendar is that it helps us live efficiently and wisely. And remember, it is not just about physical water or tigers, it is about the symbolism that the elements and animals represent.
For example, have you ever wondered why you have a hard time sticking to your New Year's resolutions? One explanation is that the Western New Year occurs in the middle of winter, when there is absolutely zero energy to support change and forward movement. The Chinese New Year occurs about a month later when nature is beginning to ever-so-slightly wake up as the spring energy stirs. Chinese New Year celebrates the arrival of Spring energy, which occurs about 90 days prior to us seeing any visible signs of Spring around us. In Chinese Medicine, we always say that energy comes first before matter, which comes in handy when making resolutions. So, right now is the best time to set your intentions for this coming year and it will be much easier now for you to stick to them because the energy of nature is working in your favor. A tangible way to work with this is to create a vision board for what you would like to feel and experience during 2022.
Before we dive more into this year, let's begin with some perspective from last two years: the Metal Rat (2020) and Metal Ox (2021). The Metal Rat was the final year of a 60 year cycle and the Metal Ox was the first year of the next 60 year cycle that we are currently in now. Both of these years are considered retrospective years, as in looking to the past of guidance for the future.
What To Expect for the Year and How to work with the Tiger Energy
The year of the Metal Ox (2021) was characterized by a slow, steady, containing energy that establishes and upholds foundations. We saw a lot of Ox energy in the increasing amount of rules, regulations and focus on social values of self-sacrifice and duty.
Now, we are moving from the year of the Metal Ox into the year of the Water Tiger. So, what does this mean? Well in short… Fasten your seatbelt because things are about to take off! For reference, the last Water Tiger year (1962) featured the first man launched into space, civil race riots and reform, and the Cuban Missile Crisis. We are transitioning from the slow solidity of the Ox into a year with the very real potential for unpredictable movement forward and possible upheaval and unrest. The Water Tiger is the ultimate energy of launching forwards, a rebellion against everything that the Ox stands for. Tiger is dynamic, fresh, spontaneous, impulsive, and Water brings change, falling apart, dissolving and emotionality.
The Tiger invites us to be courageous, willful, enthusiastic, imaginative, dedicated, honest, dignified and generous... and also asks us to be aware of our tendencies towards restlessness, impulsivity, moodiness, stubbornness, egotism, indecisiveness, sensitivity, pride, and vanity.
This year, we have an increased capacity for creativity, invention, re-invention, innovation and thinking outside the box, and water adds maturity, wisdom and sensitivity to our endeavors. And if you have been waiting to do something: this is the year to make sudden dramatic change. New beginnings, fresh starts, big moves, bold risks are all supported by the Water Tiger. So this is the year if you have been waiting to make a big life change, a fresh start, or a bold move forward.
This year we are all like tigers on the hunt, motivated by unfulfilled desires, frustrated plans, deepest longings and we feel compelled to act on them. Right now, we stand on the precipice of new birth, initiation, renewal, and potentiality, both in the season of Spring and in this Water Tiger year particularly.
So, what are you going to initiate and birth this year?
This material is very brief summation of the amazing and brilliant work of our good friend Gregory David Done, who puts a tremendous amount of hard work into his yearly article. If you want to go to even more depth about this years energy and the Tiger, please see his original post by following the link here: