CHINESE NEW YEAR OF THE SNAKE

THE ARRIVAL OF SPRING IN MARCH MARKS THE BEGINNING OF THE CHINESE LUNAR YEAR 2025. IT IS A TRANSFORMATIVE YEAR FOR HUMANKIND IN TERMS OF THE OPPORTUNITY TO GROW, REMOVE OBSTACLES, AND INCULCATE CHANGE IN ONESELF. THE CORE AREA OF THIS YEAR IS SELF-TRANSFORMATION THROUGH THE CHINESE NEW YEAR OF THE SNAKE.

Unlike the Gregorian calendar, the Chinese Lunar New Year is celebrated across various countries like Korea, Vietnam, and other South Asian countries in the same spirit with the initiation of Spring Meadows. Even in India, the “Panchanga”, the Hindu Lunisolar Calendars which has been in practice since 1000BCE, starts with the month of “Chaitra” i.e. March-April coinciding with the entrance of The Sun in the new Astrological sign of Aries. This also begins with the harvest festival (referred to as Vishu, Puthandu, Bihu, Pohela Boishakh, and Makar Sankranti) across the Indian subcontinent.

The Dawn of the Year 2025 is marked with the “Wood Snake” in the Chinese Zodiac. Even as the Snake immediately evokes a percept of fear in our senses, the Snake is appreciated and looked at in a positive light across various cultures. The core themes that surround the Snake across various Cultures are the elements of Self-transformation, healing, divinity, and royalty, or even fertility and prosperity. “Mishibijiw”, a serpentlike mythical creature with horns and a long tail that enthralls and enchants the depth of great lakes, is considered a powerful spirit in Ojibwe mythology. Spiritually, it symbolises adaptability, renewal, and connection to water spirits. In Hopi people, who reside in Arizona, Snakes are symbolized with the spirit of renewal as they shed their skin periodically, analogous to the agricultural cycles where crops must be replanted each season. Whereas, they represent ancestral spirits and are even deemed to be the mediators between the living world & spirit realm in African culture.

According to Chinese folklore, the Snake is a legendary being who had an unkempt history of being a four-legged happy creature. The tales of mythology foretells that the snake became furious and its anger exuberated drastically across other forest animals when the latter shunned and isolated him for its differential appearance.

The enormity of pent-up anger and resentment in the snake evolved him into a monstrosity to behold, as it grew a pair of fangs whilst exhibiting a lashing-out temper at the brink of insecurity. This news of raging furiousness when found its way to the Jade Emperor, was met with punishment and discernment for the snake, disabling the snake without legs and forcing it to slither in order to move and wander about. 

Though the emperor harshly took away its medium of commute, heavenly bodies promised to give the snake back its legs on the condition that he wins the race across the river. The snake was able to grasp the sixth position in this race of recognition as he earned his place in the Chinese Zodiac but could not win the great race. His ability to transform from an aggrieved version of himself to a wise, patient, and knowledgeable stature comes through isolation, perseverance, and shedding his skin to transform into an evolved, happy, and much more mature self. 

This notion of reflective transformation is symbolised by physical cocooning to unveil a higher self in the solace and discomfort of shedding. Only when we let go of what doesn’t serve us in any more, the plethora of negative emotions i.e. ego, toxicity, anger, resentment, jealousy, self -loathing, and sabotage, are we able to move ahead akin to the shedding of a Snake’s skin. We really start progressing then with gratitude, as we embrace the divinely sent gifts operating at a surrendered frequency. It is a transformative year for humankind in terms of the untapped opportunity to nurture, remove internal nuances, and imbibe the altered truth in resonance with the Universal veracity.

We are the sum total of the embodiment of our evolution to constantly transform, from Lactase Persistence or the loss of tailbone to coccyx whence humans transitioned to bipedalism or less pronounced canines in our teeth structure over thousands of years. Humans are continuously adapting, changing, and imbibing. As opposed to centuries of physical transformations, a mental delve to recognise, recalibrate and redesign the mind is the need of the hour and on this auspicious “Year of the Snake” very imminent.