Happy 2023 Lunar New Year & Start of Spring!

The 2023 Lunar New Year starts this Sunday, January 22. Spring begins 立春 on February 5th.

The Lunar New year is celebrated throughout East and Southeast Asia and is correlated with significant events in the farming calendar. As the moon circles the planet and we see it waxing and waning above us, these changes serve as a daily reminder about where we are in the repeating cycle of both the month and year. As we consider the orbit of the Earth around the Sun, we also find ourselves moving through the four seasons. These seasons show marked changes that impact all living beings on our planet.

In the cyclical clock for our world, the Winter Solstice serves as one of the most important marking events. This is the time when one of the Earth’s poles (North or South) reaches its furthest tilt away from the sun. This happens twice a year (once in the Northern hemisphere and once in the Southern hemisphere). In whichever hemisphere is affected, we will experience the shortest day and longest night. We know it to be the extreme cold of Winter. This is such an important moment in the year that many ancient civilizations around the world marked the solstices with large monuments, such as Stonehenge in England, Nabta Playa in the Nubian Desert, the Temple of Karnak in Egypt, Tulum City in the Yucatan Peninsula and the Cerro del Gentil Pyramid in Peru.

Coming out of the Winter solstice and heading towards the Spring means an awakening for all of us, as the Sun is “reborn.” The days become longer and our environment becomes warmer. In the Spring, farmers watch the celestial clock to know when to prepare the fields so that the plants have their best chance to feed us.

As we consider the effects of climate change occurring on our planet, we know that it’s more important than ever that we give attention to the cyclical clock. The different seasons bring drastically different temperatures and rainfall, affecting the moisture content of our soil, the evaporation rates, the flow of rivers, how much snow cover we have and the amount of water contained in our lakes. Vegetation changes, such as falling leaves and ripening berries, affect the ability for animals to thrive. These changes also affect the likelihood of forest fires and other climactic events. For modern people, understanding where we are in the seasonal cycle can help us to be good custodians of the Earth. For example, considering the seasons when we plan controlled burns for the prevention of forest fires can ensure that the food supplies of grazing animals are maintained and birthing seasons are not interrupted.

The Lunar New Year holiday is tracked with the Moon cycle in respect to our place in orbit around the sun. It occurs on the second new moon after the Winter Solstice. We will be celebrating the holiday on Sunday, January 22.

The ancient Chinese text, the Lushi Chunqiu 呂氏春秋 (~239 BC) detailed a Nuo 儺 folk cleaning ritual that occurs during the end of the year. This cleaning ritual started as a time to perform exorcisms by worshipping ancestral gods so that they became strong and could fight off any maleficent influences. Over the years, this ritual has turned into a cleaning ritual for the home. At the second new moon, it is common to make offerings of gratitude to our ancestors and living family members and to bless others with wishes for good health.

The start of Spring is tracked along our orbit around the sun, in relationship to the Winter Solstice. In this calendar, the time between the Winter solstices is divided into 24 solar terms (15° portions of the ecliptic, called jieqi 節氣). Each of the solar terms is a two-week long period. The start of the cycle is Lichun 立春, “Spring Commences,” and for 2023, this starts on the morning of February 4th.

https://www.chinatravel.com/facts/chinese-solar-terms.htm

At the new moon signifying the start of the 2023 year (January 22), we move into the Year of the Yin Water Rabbit, tunian 兔年. As most of us know, the years rotate through the 12 animals of the Chinese zodiac, which are often represented by animals. These animals are symbols of the 12 “Earthly Branches” 地支, astrological signifiers that correlate with the orbit of Jupiter.

For the Year of the Rabbit 兔, there are many interesting characteristics that folks ascribe to this. I went to school for Chinese medicine at a Classical Chinese medicine program, so I learned about this earthly branch as being associated with the Chinese concept of the Large Intestine and the time period of 5-7am. This is the time when the sun is just beginning to rise over the horizon, and so there are Springtime characteristics built into it: new beginnings, a gentleness, novelty, great potential and creativity.

As this zodiac animal is associated with the Large Intestine, there are also themes about protection (the colon is lined with immune tissue), the ability to digest what our life brings to us and the ability to use what we are given on a routine schedule and get our nourishment out of it. It’s also worth noting that a significant amount of our gut flora reside in the Large Intestine, where we nurture a symbiotic relationship. There are ideas here about collaborating and working in unity for our survival.

The Yin Water aspect of the year is called Gui 癸. This is one of the ten “Celestial Stems” 天干 of the zodiac, which work in the cycle with the Earthly Branches. The people of the Shang Dynasty (~1250 BCE) held that there were Ten Suns, or world ages, and these Celestial Stems were the names of those special ages. The Yin Water 癸 stem is the last in the cycle and just like the rabbit, it symbolizes a gentle, nourishing sort of water. This water is flexible and adaptable, and often talked about as a mist or evaporating and condensing water. Like all water, it is able to transform us through whatever terrain we encounter, towards a place of wisdom.

Water often comes with a great deal of mystery and is very associated with emotional change. Water shifts as it makes its way towards the lowest point. It does not contend with what is around it, but rather naturally wears a path forward, towards where it needs to go. Mist, especially, is a mutable type of water that conforms to whatever is moving through it. It also has the ability to cloud and confuse the area. It is often representative of general resource, such as money, as it ebbs and flows into and out of our lives.

As we prepare for the Year of the Yin Water Rabbit, we can follow the ritual of the ancients before us by giving thanks to our ancestors and living family members, cleaning our physical spaces, nurturing our immune systems and considering the world time and how we might be good custodians for our beautiful home.

The global COVID-19 pandemic appears to be waning, yet we still have much work to do together to address issues of social justice and climate change. May this year allow us to let go of what we no longer need from the last couple of years as we usher in a gentle start to our co-creation of a new future.

For myself, I’m trying harder to follow the advice of Indigenous educator Vanessa Machado De Oliveira “to grow up, step up, and show up for ourselves, our communities, and our Earth, and to interrupt the modern behavior patterns that are killing our planet.” I highly recommend this visionary’s new book: Hospicing Modernity: Facing Humanity's Wrongs & the Implications for Social Activism. If you’re not into reading, perhaps check out the interview with Vanessa on Green Dreamer: Allowing Earth to Dream Through Us.

I wish you all a beautiful New Year with deepening connections to the ancestors and family members as well as the blossoming of new friendships.