If ever you have wondered sometimes why we do the things we do, act or react the way we do, this post has a go at trying give a little starter insight into a fun way to look at things. The things that are most likely adding unseen motivation and influence, to our emotional, our 'internal waters' of the body, so to speak. What may colour the spark that fans our ideas.
Chinese Astrology has been a fairly continuous practice and knowledge for over 1000 years. Though tweaked to the 'current at the time' ruling political and religious ideology; the fundamentals have more or less remained continuous. However the 'why' has been lost to time and like any old ideas, superstition added to explain something not fully understood. So enjoy a little jaunt into my journey trying scrape back the superstition, the dogma, study humble practitioners, old and new, observe 'natives of the animals' and meditations on the influences of Earth energy and human conscious.
We, at times, all feel that to have a life compass, a life instruction manual or a crystal ball in our back pocket would make things a little easier when navigating the landscape of life. The Chinese culture has historically been the most prominent culture that has every year acknowledged the lunar calendar. Plus maintained a bank of ancient knowledge for how to interpret the cosmic and earthly influences within our life experiences; personally, environmentally and human. There was a brief, in the scale of things, 60 year-ish interruption where the practice was banned however a new dawn happened with harnessing the domestic economy such a holiday provides, Chinese astrology has been revamped, so I encourage you to dig deeper in your own study and practice.
Chinese New year 2024 Green Dragon starts 10th February 2024 and is celebrated for ten days/ two weeks. This is the year of the Dragon, Green represents the colour of Wood. Wood is also the native element of the Dragon, so Wood is double influenced. The symbol for Wood in the Dragon year is the pine tree, the season is Spring and the direction is East, the manifestation is wind/air. The Seeds we planted in the past now have an opportunity to flourish, to grow. The foundations laid down in the last two years are potentially set. Follow the feeling of Joy in what you do. This is the time for organisation, clearing and decisive action. Hesitation and acting from indecision or cluttered thinking is unformed and will be harder for things to flourish or grow in.
The Big Picture for Chinese New Year 2024 Green Dragon
Ahhh!, our Dragon, dear Dragon, is 'The Force', the power and can be quite magnificent. This is the year especially on the Chinese calendar to hitch your wagon to the one you love, if you are feeling to do so. Start a business, make a baby, and if the mood moves you and the former actions not enough for you, this is the year to potentially take incredible risks.
Dragon year contains the energy to transform, if you feel to change from the stock standard and rise above the stream you have been floating around in, then utilise the vitality and energy of the Dragon to transform from lack-lustre to iridescence. Remain optimistic and leap out of the water into the air. You may be surprised how magical your idea potentially is, when it is lifted into the light, how the light changes dull to iridescent. Try not to think with the same mind and be surprised how big the view may get.
The mystery and the majesty of Dragon is the soul, Dragon is the embodied mystery of what we call soul. The manifestation of the journey of the Soul is outwardly expressed in the eyes. I guess hence the saying 'the eyes are the windows of the soul'. The passage for the soul's journey in the human existence is how we create and destroy in our time here and this in the mystery of the Dragon is contained in the emotions. How we take our feelings and make it 'matter', make it physical, stuff no less to contemplate and meditate on but the key is in the Wood.
Wood is the element of 2024, it is the energy of life and the ability to defy gravity, it utilises the elements to create a full cycle of seed to tree to seed to tree and so on. All the while, distributing water, oxygen and releasing minerals, to build Earth. The number associated with Wood is 8 or Ba Gua. This also represents the concept of infinity, the eternal infinite cycle. Wood is the air, the four winds, a force of nature. It effects our liver and our gall. It can be the yell and the loud noise or it can be the soft breeze. When out of balance in the body it can produce anger, depression, depondency. To take on too much Yin is death to the Dragon. Onward and upward in all directions at once.
Fly with the power of the Dragon
Organise is the beginning.
How can we change when all changes around us?
Fly with the Power of the Dragon
Dragon great mythic beast of our four winds, many have tried to control, capture and harness your power for their own purposes, some feel that you are tamed just by ignoring, blocking, overlooking, disregarding you, or just by utilising an equal sheer force of will on body, mind and soul. Most have forgotten that it is with you, we fly, we harmonise and we embrace Joy. Let us in these words find a moment to reconnect with the power of this natural force within us and around us, let us walk within your wind, and together fly.
Face 2024 without fear, for there will be much that many may fear, about to come to pass in this year. Just as the hero's journey of old that when facing a dragon;
to be without fear, be of true heart, see clearly the ground before you, be uplifted by pure Joy, turn your face to the wind and step into the air.
Wood as wind, always represents change, 2024 and we are entering the winds of change. Riding in the wake of the dragon, is most comfortable if the ground beneath is harmoniously organised. Just as a pleasant breeze lifts off the valley floor balanced with water, vegetation, open spaces and rounded stones. So too do our ideas, plans, business, home, anything we wish to grow in the world, grows better when the foundations are balanced and organised. This is for internal as well as for external.
Dragon year is the year that those who seek to control others may have been waiting for, the year to best utilise anger, implement the seeds that blossom into organisational structure and form that may harness the populous anger to change the organisation of the past. If this is something you fear, then take the energy of transformation embodied within the Dragon to rise above the waters/emotional pool, find Joy, and leap into the air. Don't allow your anger to be a weapon for others to use, find harmony in cleansing the liver and gall to allow a space potential to find Joy. Do things that bring you Joy, unplug from the constant stream that harnesses your mind and follow your Joy. See it not as not addressing the issue, see it as not allowing control of others, or not losing your power by giving power to your power, which is Joy.
Organise your space, allow a platform for Green Dragon to build on
Wood is the great organiser, with double the wood in the year of the Green Dragon, this is doubly so. Wood separates the basic minerals and elements to utilise in the whole, the big picture. The tree's body is layered with the rings of its years, showing it's health, the good times and the lean. It has at least three distinct zones, the root zone, the trunk / branch zones and the leaf / flower zone. Though it has the same basic skin layer within which all things happen, they each have distinct DNA tweaks that makes its zone do as it needs to
do. Outwardly one representation and not the only one be sure, are the contracts we undertake, the promises either physical, emotional and /or spiritual.
Along with all this, Wood harnesses time, using the past to determine the year ahead, what to grow, how much to grow, and if to grow at all. The wisdom of Wood is the knowledge that every year is different and the tree is somewhat prepared for that by its basic organisation. if the year proves a little different to past years, it has the ability to change just by the length of light, the access to viable nutrient and temperature change to the root zone.
So take from this , is that in each miracle, each opportunity that comes your way this year is determined by what was laid down in the previous years. This determines how flexible to conditions and your response timing, the determination of height you can grow, and the potential of where you land and how best to determine your risk. Let fly!. This is the year we can captialise on the knowledge and mainly experience gathered and gained.
What makes this wood year a little different is the Dragon. Dragon as the being of the air also utilises the layering effect of the air, each layer producing types of climatic responses to the pressures and temperatures and moisture harnessed, like a tree. Air moves, becomes wind with change of temperature, a drop in pressure or a rise in pressure. If you stand on the outer rim of personal energy field of any living thing, on the edge of perception, the fight or flight boundary. That living thing feels the pressure of your presence on the edge of its perceived personal space. If you were to then take a step into that boundary or cross it. You will have created pressure within that field. That pressure initiates a response in the field that is read through the limbic system of the living thing. The application of pressure will create change to the direction, the thinking, and the emotional state of that living thing. If you take time to be perceptive of this it will open a world of understanding as to who, what and where outer pressures are interacting with life experience.
Emotion response is the best way to invest your energy in an expanding field. The best way to emotionally hook a person to invest in an idea, action, belief is through the eyes, a visual story. So when you stand on the periphery of a living beings emotional response hence visual periphery, then step an intention, idea, comment, truth; into the perceived personal space, you create pressure that feels internal, that offers the being the potential of moving in a direction you have chosen. The being feels it has freely chosen the direction it moves in not realising that it was given a dual direction one open one closed. This is the power of the Dragon, when in balance it can be dynamic collaborative growth, when in unbalance it can be controlling and confining.
This happens everyday with everyone to lesser or greater degrees. 2024 being in a source
year, there is the potential to become aware and potentially change the view. Dragon isn't about giving your power to the dragon it is about growing this vital and amazing energy within. To be your power to rise on your own currents, to bring the 'miracle' in everything you do. What outer pressures do you allow to run your emotional energy? Activate or stop your actions? If the sun came up and the moon cycled in is space, would it matter? Optimisim will set you free, optimism fuelled by our own inner pressures, knowledge, wisdom and experience.
This will be the year a lot of outside pressure will be on success, being a success, become a success, why aren't you a success, what if you were a success, there is one way to success etc. etc. Dragon fly's a flag in one hand that clearly says 'there are no rules, just be prepared for anything.' And in the other, ' you have all you need, you have what it takes, success will take care of itself.' Don't focus on success, focus on your inner pressure changes, how that feels within the outer changing climate, respond with the resources available, see the bright side and don't measure against anyone else, fill your being with Joy, don't look down, just fly!
If you have acted with humility and worked hard, gathered resources, not undermined the 'ecology', Dragon year will support your ideas. You have to be prepared to divest yourself of the human condition, the emotional toing and froing, the procrastination and excuses, Dragon can't stand a wowser, a shilly-shaller. Dragon year encourages you to grow a spine, yes, the spine of the mountain range is seen as a sleeping dragon. Plus the spine of course is our trunk.
Spinal fluid, in some circles, is seen as the closest representation of the soul in a corporeal form we can get. If you get into ancient Chinese anatomy, the spine drives everything, all movement comes from the spine, pressure induced changes through temperature and fluid pressure. The energy moves through the body as if permeating the from a single source and very quickly, mainly the excitation of the cells/ molecules/ stuff. Spinal flow as it is sometimes called, has the ability to circulate and transform jing (blood/lymph) ,into chi, (energy) which in turn circulates and transforms into shen (spirit) which circulates and produces jing. As a creature of soul it has the ability to transform matter to spirit that produces matter, so to speak..
If you go even further, along the spine at intervals is a series of gates, the gates open and close each with the ability to bring specific energetic nourishment to the body, the emotions and the spirit, the spinal flow uninhibited is a path to enlightenment, and at the end the ability of the soul to leave the body with ease, taking it's accumulated resources into the next thing the soul journey is on. And I guess, you do truly fly, who thought growing a spine could do all that?
2024 How can we change when all changes around us?
So you have your ideas, the things your wish to grow, the things you would like to see develop against the odds. Clear space for it, albeit; a cupboard, a room, a yard, your liver, your timetable.
Decisively delete things that are out of control, or beyond control, out of harmony, outdated. Find a way to increase or create resources. Create boundaries, follow the sense of Joy of an idea growing. Tame the overthinking, the procrastination, the distraction of success, take up traditional guided mediation practice that utilise breath, practice swimming in a timeframe, take up practices that allow you to access natural breath. Try exercise to strengthen the spine, naturally while supporting
flexibility and suppleness.
Within the scope of the changes of Dragon is the changes of contracts, the getting what you wished for. As a young child in play will make secret wishes for the future, the mystery of the Dragon is that within the smoke and steam, our prayers may be lifted to the realm of the gods, in other words your intentions and wishes when emoted at a harmionising frequency, has the power to manifest from the chi resources you have stacked away, your wish. This is an interesting branch of study but beyond the scope of this post. so suffice to say that if your idea requires a miracle then this potentially a good time to perform one. Take up the prayer and meditation for visualisation, explore the mudra meditations and any conventional spiritual practice. You never say never, not this year anyway.
Do anything that supports that optimistic feeling like the first rays of sunshine cracking the dawn. Try to recapture that feeling of awakening at dawn a young child running out to play in the morning sun; that feeling... right there, now let it grow; follow that, do that, be that.
Keep an eye out for the next post; our yearly rumble in how your animal may fair in 2024.
If you have anything you wish to share in the comments, please do. I look forward to flying with you in 2024.