Happy and Prosperous Chinese Spring Festival 2020, Chinese New Year

 

Chinese New Year 2020 falls on Saturday, January 25, 2020, beginning a year of the Rat. The Chinese New Year, also called the Spring Festival, is the longest annual holiday. It starts on the first of the Lunar Calendar and lasts until the 15th day.

The Spring Festival marks a new year on the lunar calendar and represents the desire for a new life.

The Rat is associated with the Metal Element... Meticulous. In terms of yin and yang (阴阳—yīn yáng), the Rat is Yang (Divine Masculine), and it represents Renewal, the beginning of a new day. The Yang Metal Rat influences the 12 Chinese Zodiac Signs in 2020.  The Metal Element Color is White, it is of value to focus on cultivating Integrity, Achieving Academic Excellence and on being an Instrument of Peace. 

The Yang Metal element in Traditional Chinese Energy Medicine symbolizes autumn, that is, harvest time.  The Metal Element governs the Year of The Rat 2020, and the basis are in structure, in order, in self discipline and in precision.

The Yang Metal Rat 2020 is the year of renewed ambitions and strategies, where one turn one's back to the past, accepts the lessons that have been learned and keep the experiences that are for good, to have evolved ourselves spiritually speaking. 

What is the purpose of life and what is then the Spiritual meaning of a New Year? The purpose of life is to love, to learn how to love the self, and to love the self it is first necessary to know the self. Love is too about self appreciation and how can we appreciate something that we don't know, then it is necessary to invest this life to know the self, to know and to cultivate, appreciate who we are.  The Spiritual meaning of a New Year is always about embracing the energy of new beginnings, under the umbrella of a Constructive Cycle. It is a choice to want to focus on where we are going and to let go of what doesn't serve us well any more.  But more over, this new year of 2020, The Yang Metal Rat energy or spiritual essence is inviting us to focus on inner harmony, inner balance, self reflection and silence to create this space so needed within to be able to listen, to listen to our unique voice within.  

May time for Meditation, for self reflection, for study of the self be too a New Year goal. And, most of all, this year the dominant color present throughout the year is the color White for Metal... so let's focus on making and nurturing peace and peaceful ways, and for this, for peace to exist we first have to disarm our minds and our hearts. 

The Metal Rat is Passionate about everything it undertakes, it loves freedom and this is a good environment to power our Imagination. But, are the basis of the thoughts that we choose to think of importance to craft worlds into being?  Yes, so it is important to learn how to choose and cultivate our Roots, to grow Branches toward the outcomes that we aim at; like Rats who are associated with the energy of Prosperity, Optimism, Creativity, Meticulous and of a Financial Stability.  

China is a nation of colorful languages. There are many variations to even the most simple Chinese New Year greetings. You have probably heard of xīn nián kuài lè (新年快乐) or Happy New Year, but it is said differently in other Chinese regions.

China is home to over ten dialects including the Beijing dialect, Cantonese, and Shanghainese.  Cantonese is also one of the most widely used dialects in China apart from Mandarin.

“Happy Spring Festival” in Mandarin, say chūn jiē kuài lè.

Calligraphy is another popular form of Art in China.

Characters representing blessings are written on square pieces of red paper and pasted on walls, doors, or windows. The most common character used as Chinese New Year decoration is fu (福) as it represents fortune.

The Kongming Lantern (孔明灯) is especially significant during the festival. People write down their wishes on these lanterns before releasing them to the heavens in hopes of getting their wishes granted.

Tale of the 12 Zodiac Animals

The story of the 12 zodiac animals is one of the most well-known Chinese New Year myths. The order of the twelve zodiac animals was determined by a race arranged by the Jade Emperor

According to one folktale, the Jade Emperor decided that the order of the animals would be determined according to the order by which they arrived at his party. This zodiac animal cleverly convinced the Ox to give him a ride. Just as the pair arrived at the door, the Rat jumped ahead and landed before the Ox.


The tiger and the rabbit then followed soon after. Instead of potentially finishing ahead of the pack, the dragon was delayed because it deviated from the race to save an entire village from a flood. The snake arrived at the same time as the dragon but was too small to be noticed immediately. The dog, the monkey, and the rooster finished together after they helped a god in another country. Finishing close to each other was the horse and the goat. The horse was just a tad bit faster than the goat. After its home was destroyed by a wolf, the pig had to rebuild its house before entering the race and, eventually, finishing last.

Spring Festival Food

Chinese people give a lot of merit and importance to 'seeds', and this is to me a significant and a meaningful spiritual metaphor. Seeds signify one's potential as a miraculous human being for great things. In Traditional Chinese Energy Medicine seeds are use for their invaluable 'energetic potential' to influence biomarkers of health and well being in our physical body. 

Chinese people love their baked seeds as one of the most popular snacks to celebrate the Spring Festival or to welcome a New Year, a new and better beginning... for the self and for everyone. 

 Cultivate Balance, 

Cultivate Prosperity Consciousness,

 Treasure Your Family, Nurture Others, Be Happy...

Once an Elder 92 years old said to me this; "It is foolish not to be happy."  So, I am inviting everyone to focus on the perusing of inner happiness and of happiness as a way of life. Let's focus on that which we wish to create and on that which we want more of...

Note: The Unlucky Things to Do at Chinese New Year

Sweeping up on New Year's Day: don't "sweep all your luck away".  😉

Love and Light!

Happy New and Better Beginnings... IN Love

Katherine 

 - Twitter: @DearestSource

Self-Healing Cultivation With The Moon - Lungs (Metal Element)

Dearest friends,

Here is a simple self-healing cultivation, (gathering and trans-forming) good energy practice or spiritual exercise. Bring into your awareness the presence of nature, our extended body. Tune-in to the energy of love, well-being, bliss or flow to live in freedom and joy.

Taoist QiGong Self-Healing Cultivation: Transforming "blocked" emotional energy into nourishment-at-ease of the five organs; elements of nature present in our physical composition; Heart (Fire), Spleen (Earth), Lungs (Metal), Kidneys (Water) and Liver (Wood), as described in Chinese Energy Medicine.  We are physical extensions of the environment we live in.

In this specific cultivation, (exercise practice), we transform the stuck energy of grief, located in the lung organ-system, into the lung's virtue, (the positive essence of the lung in Chinese Energy Medicine is courage.)

Time Required: 10-15 minutes, or longer if you wish
Modulation: Sound, Light, Metal Element

1. Find a quiet place to practice. I do recommend you create your own PEACE CORNER(1) for your daily cultivations. Sit upright on the front edge of a straight-backed chair, facing South since this is a cultivation for enrichment, with your feet flat on the floor, directly beneath your knees. It's also fine to sit in a cross-legged position on a cushion of the floor, if this is comfortable for you.
2. Calm your mind and your body. Focus on the present moment at peace. Take a couple of deep, slow breaths. As you exhale, smile gently, which will help to release any unnecessary tension in your face, jaw, neck or shoulders. Feel your energy settling into your lower abdomen - the lower dantien. 
3. Bring your focus - your conscious attention - to your lungs: a huge organ, comprised of five lobes, which occupies the majority your mid- to upper chest (everywhere except for where your heart is). Smile gently to your lungs, as you shift your focus toward the co-creation of good healing energy.
4. Take a deep, smooth, soft inhalation, and as you exhale, make the healing sound ssssss - like the sound of a snake hissing. Direct, with your visualization, the vibration of this sound into your lungs, and feel that it is helping the "stuck" emotional energy of grief (your inner vision can see it as a gray cloud), to become "unstuck," i.e. to flow again as simply energy, without a specific name or shape.
5. Make the ssssss sound, with your focus in your lungs, at least three times - though it's fine to repeat as many times as you'd like. This is the first part of the self-healing practice: using sound to release the energy of grief.
6. In the second part of the practice, we're going to use the vibration of light to nourish the lung's virtue of courage. Here's how: First, focus your attention and exhale completely, and with your inhalation, imagine that you're drawing into your lungs a beautiful shimmering white light - the color of a full moon.
7. "Breathe" this white healing light in through your nostrils, and mentally direct it to your lungs. Alternatively, you can "breathe" this healing light in through every cell of your skin, directing it to your lungs.Visualization and concentration are important components of this self-healing cultivation.
8. Feel your lungs opening to receive the gift of this beautiful healing light - as though they were drinking a wonderful nectar, a powerful elixir. The energy of the moon is refreshing, cooling, reinvigorating and gives you strength.  See your lungs beginning to pulse and glow - to vibrate with this beautiful white energy, fill them up as if they were actually made of white light.
9. With each inhalation, draw into your lungs this beautiful moon-white light. With each exhalation, simply notice the lung's "virtue" of courage. This is a quality that already exists within you. We're simply using a particular frequency of light to nourish it, to invite it to reveal its full splendor to us.
10. Draw the healing light into your lungs for five or six breaths, at least - though you can continue for as long as you like.
11. To end the practice, smile once again down to your lungs, and notice how you feel.
12. Smile to the moon and do remember to practice this cultivation with the Full Moon, however, remember that the white lady, the Moon is always there. I had a student once that told me that she was not able to practice this exercise because there was no moon during the new moon cycle. Oh! The moon is gone, the moon is gone I said to her. :) Of course the moon is there and it is always there even when we don't "see it" with our physical eyes. 

Remember that in Taoist Qigong practice emotions can be understood as forms of blocked energy. We use the healing sounds, the power of focusing the mind with an "INTENTION" to shift energy and the power of visualization to direct and craft energy, AND  to break up a particular emotion/shape, so that the energy bound in that shape can once again flow freely.

Write to me if you wish to share your experience with this self-healing cultivation or if you have further questions. I am here to help you in any way I can. :)

Love and light!
Katherine


My Divine Travels - Lotus Bioenergy Clinic
Chinese Energy Medicine - Doctor Medical QiGong  
Gerontologist - Taoist Meditation Instructor Certified
Kundalini Yoga Teacher