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Chinese New Year: Year of the Water Snake
Because the Chinese calendar is based on the soli-lunar cycle, the Chinese year begins with the second New Moon after the Winter Solstice. So very year we celebrate it on our Aquarius New Moon.
Known as the Spring Festival , traditional Chinese New Year celebrations run from Chinese New Year's Day itself to the Lantern Festival, the 15th day of the first month. The evening preceding Chinese New Year's Day is the annual reunion dinner for Chinese families. Chinese New Year is a time to sweep away the old year's ill fortune to make way for new luck. You might get new clothes, new shoes and a new haircut to invoke the new you. It's also a good time to pay off any outstanding debts so you start the year fresh. Houses are decorated in red colored papers asking for good fortune, happiness, wealth and longevity. It is a time for family and community, when the gods are invoked for blessings as well as the ancestor spirits for protection. Each of the 15 days is a special time to invoke the different blessings of life. It reminds me of the ancient festival of the 12 Days of Christmas, which we sadly do not celebrate anymore.
This year Chinese New Year falls on February 10, 2013 , but the first day of the astrological Chinese New Year occurred on February 4, 2013. We say goodbye to 2012's Black Water Dragon and welcome 2013's Year of the Snake , the Black Water Snake. Snake is usually shy, cautious and low-keyed. Snakes are intelligent, charming, self-aware, elegant, mysterious, cunning, and passionate, or proud, vain, and vicious. (Sounds like Scorpio to me!) Since Snake is the 6th animal in the Chinese horoscope order sequence, it is considered a Yin (female) animal. The outside of Snake looks soft, but the inside is tough. (Yeah! The Goddess has retained her snake wisdom, soft and flexible and yet strong.)
For more information about this Chinese New Year 2013 see: http://www.chinesefortunecalendar.com/2013ChineseHoroscope.htm)
For more on the Water Snake: (http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/china-news/chinese-new-year-2013-the-year-of-the-snake-343924.html)
Aquarius New Moon, February 9-10, 2013
This year's
Aquarius New Moon falls on February 9-10, and occurs at 11:21pm PST on February
9th and at 2:21am EST and 7:21am GMT on February 10th.
New Moons offer us a chance to immerse ourselves in a sign's energy. Aquarius is a fixed air sign, and is concerned with ideals and archetypes, the group Mind and our ability to work together as equals for the future. Our Aquarian nature helps us strive for freedom, community and equality. An Aquarian project you might like to participate in on Valentine's Day, February 14th is V-Day, One Billion Rising, a global activist movement to end violence against women and girl. Please go to: http://www.vday.org/home for more details. And JOIN THE DANCE!
The constellation of Aquarius is called the Water-Bearer, and is most often symbolized by the figure of a man pouring water from a jar. The ancients imagined that this whole section of the night sky was a great celestial sea: the constellation of Aquarius is surrounded by the constellations of the Whale, the Fishes, the Dolphin and Eridanus--the River Po. For when the Sun passes through the sign of Aquarius, it heralds the rainy season in these ancient lands. The symbol for Aquarius, two wavy lines -- --, seems to represent undulating lines of water.
But the astrological sign of Aquarius is considered a fixed air sign, representing rational intelligence and social interaction. Aquarius is more concerned with Ideals than feelings--the awakening of the Mind and its vast potentials, as well as the urge for true freedom. The brilliance of the Aquarian mind seems to reflect the working of the Cosmic Mind. That's why Aquarius is so often related to the Archetypal world. Carl Jung saw the coming Age of Aquarius as an age when the archetypes are lived consciously by humanity. If this is the truth behind the image of the Water-Bearer, than we can say he is pouring out the watery contents of the collective unconscious for us to access.
Aquarius calls us to stand up for our ideals. And it does this through community. When we band together, we create a stronger energy than when we stand alone. The water of our feeling life connects us to each other and to our ideals. That's why the symbol of Arthur's Round Table is so apt for this sign. We are called to become a community of equals.
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