Happy Lunar New Year! This year’s Spring Festival is here giving us a sort of second chance at hitting those New Year resolutions. I didn’t actually make any this year. In fact I rarely do anymore, preferring to wait until springtime to begin any sweeping life changes. I would always get so frustrated when I would inevitably give in the failure, that it just seemed so pointless. I prefer to set intentions. Those seem to sting less when we lapse back into our old habits. I keep having to remind myself that failing at something doesn’t make you a failure. They are merely lessons that our souls need to learn on this earthly plane.
Dating back thousands of years, the Lunar New Year is traditionally celebrated all over Asia. Julius Caesar switched it over to the solar-based calendar that we use today after he took over Rome. The Church really does seem to hate everything that corresponds to the feminine aspects of our nature. Think about it. Why would a man need to keep track of a 28-day cycle? He wouldn’t, but a woman would.
Year of the Water Tiger
We are moving from a metal ox year, which is very structured and likes things done a certain way, to the water tiger, which asks us to let things flow a little more. Last year was all about routines and perseverance, much like oxen pulling a plow through a field. This year will hopefully restore some fluidity to our lives. The water tiger comes every 60 years, the last time being in 1962. That was around the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis, of which I know very little about as we were not taught that in school. I was basically taught a lot about the Civil War (mostly wrong information) and World War 2 (entirely too much information). We did however also manage to send John Glenn into outer space to circle the Earth and combatted the polio virus with a fancy new vaccine. I would say that things have changed, but it seems that not much really has. We are still fighting a virus, sending whiteys to the moon, and Russia is having an itchy trigger finger yet again.
Tigers tend to be very action-oriented, representing strength and bravery. Ruled by science-loving Uranus, tiger years are all about clearing away evil, an outdated way of saying it’s time to disrupt “the system.” However the water aspect brings along with it our intuition, our creative and emotional natures. As a society we spend so much time in our masculine sides, the sun, the solar energy, that we forget there are two sides to every coin.
The feminine needs to express herself in all of her glorious lunation. She is that little voice inside our heads saying, “Go little rock star.” She is the gut feeling that we keep trying to ignore in hopes that it will just go away. Emotions don’t ever just go away. You have to feel them in order to get through them. Otherwise you may become that angry Karen who refuses to leash her dog at the park, because her dog is well trained. Pay no attention to the snarling beast that is chasing you down the trail.
Aquarius New Moon
We have our only Aquarius New Moon of the year occurring on the same day as our Lunar New Year. That is a whole lot of second chance energy heading our way. Fixed air sign Aquarius is all about the emotional realm, bringing with it signs of hope for the future. Ruled by both Saturn, the planet of structure, and Uranus, the planet that rules our higher minds, Aquarius allows us to dance between these solar and lunar aspects of ourselves with a little more flow and grace. We all have these polarizing qualities inside us. It only becomes difficult when we try to shove one or the other under the water to try to drown it out. We don’t realize that it takes other parts of us down with it.
The corresponding Aquarius Full Moon occurs on August 11, 2022, completing yet another six month cycle in our everchanging lives. Water bringer Aquarius invites us into the practice of sitting and actually feeling our emotions, rather than bottling them up. Whatever those feelings are that you are running away from, they will eventually come out somewhere in your life. And usually it comes out at the wrong time to the wrong person, or at least that has been my experience.
Mercury Direct
According to the interwebs, January was sort of a trial run for your goals, gifting us with the opportunity to clear away any residual yuckiness from that pesky Venus Retrograde, which only went direct on January 29. I’d say give things a good two weeks for the dust to settle. Mercury is still retrograde until February 3, so let’s not rush into anything. It is still winter after all. There is no reason to jump out of our annual hibernation when we could allow ourselves to slowly roll out of bed.
Winter is one of the most difficult seasons for me. I hate the cold, and snow is the absolute worst. My Seasonal Affective Disorder kicks in pretty hard, activating my already tender depression. I really should consider moving somewhere warmer. Maybe one day when I am rich, I will buy a vacation home on some desert island somewhere. I am assuming there will be any left considering climate change and all. But like all seasons in our lives, this too shall pass. I know this logically, although the emotional side of me likes to forget sometimes, especially when I’m in the thick of it all.
Mad love, Jenna
