How This Winter Solstice Will Affect You Next Year

The Year of the Dragon is coming, and what you do now can impact it.

The most recent New Moon a few days ago on December 12. In Daoist and Chinese lunar traditions, this moon cycle is considered the Winter Moon or 11th Moon of the lunar year. This Moon cycle contains the 'Great Snow' or Winter Solstice, and marks the start of two moons (the 11th and 12th) of harsher cold spells. The Winter Solstice or Dongzhi is celebrated as a festival of observing Yin at her greatest, and it is this honouring of her height that the Yang can re-emerge. In Daoist thought, this acknowledgement and sitting with Yin is vital for Spring, in order for the gifts of the subsequent year, to arrive and come to fruition. This year's return to and observance of the Great Yin is crucially important on two main levels. 

One, being that we are in the year of the Hare or Rabbit, and the Hare is intricately tied to the Moon, so in a way, to revere the Winter Solstice is to be present to our current reality - all the desirable and undesirable - and our our emotions (lunar) with it. If you've been feeling emotions in more pronounced ways, this is Hare speaking to you. 

The second reason is because next lunar year, we will be transitioning into the Year of the Dragon, and leaving the Element of Water who has been with us the past two years and into the Wood Element. If you've been feeling depleted, restless, frustrated and accumulated in the body, this is Dragon speaking to you. The Wood Dragon only comes once every 60 years. Wood Dragon, risking over simplification, brings collective influence in innovation, creative contributions, as well as civic/political voicing/changes. (For context during the last Wood Dragon year, there were massive civic opposition to the Vietnam War, the popularity of the Beatles, Race Riots and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was written into law, Dr Martin Luther King Jr was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, NASA made some big moves).

We are at a precipice of change, of seismic transition. I've been channeling / forecasting this for well over a year. This Winter Solstice is a crucial time to actively close doors and open new ones. Because we know what happens when we resist life. It will do it for us, and often with more force than we would like. This is not to frighten you. In fact, it's to give you a sense of hope and confidence. The call is to recharge under Yin's shade, and to venture underground, where the restoration of life takes place - not with the glorious blooms, but with worms and rot.

Rest and renewal is a form of preparation and gathering of energy, which the Wood Dragon will invariably ask of us. To harness the gifts of the Dragon to usher the desired changes into your life will depend just how much Yin can be present in you.

When there is darkness in our life, we rest and renew.
If you're confused, rest and renew.
If you're grieving, rest and renew.
If you're angry, rest and renew.
If you're feeling suffocated, rest and renew.
If you're wanting a better world, rest and renew.
If you're discouraged, rest and renew.
If you're feeling grateful, rest and renew.

We will be revering the Yin together for RETURNING TO THE YIN: A WINTER SOLSTICE E-GATHERING on Thursday, December 21 from 6-8PM PST. We will then be ushering in the YEAR OF THE WOOD DRAGON: FORECASTS FOR THE LUNAR YEAR + ANCESTRAL OFFERINGS on Saturday, February 11, 2024 (currently with early bird savings). 

And if you're seeking an intimate grassroots e-space, where you can engage in ritual, psychic development, and change in community, we welcome you to HOMING COVEN.

For our continued journey,

Mimi