2025 Lunar New Year - harnessing your power in the year of the Green Snake

On January 29, 2025, we begin the New Lunar Year of the Wood Snake. What implications does this have for our energy? In what ways will 2025 differ from the departing 2024 Lunar Year?

First, let's examine the characteristics of traditional snake symbolism, followed by an exploration of the energetics of the Wood Element. Finally, by revisiting key aspects of the retiring Wood Dragon, from my last year's blog, we can understand how the energy is set to change.

Snake Symbolism in the East and the West

Our initial instinct when seeing a snake is to back away. It provokes apprehension or even fear. Only by viewing this creature from its own perspective, free from the widespread fear ingrained in collective consciousness, can we truly appreciate its attributes. It is likely that the first lesson this year will teach us how to overcome our apprehensions.

Perhaps its poor reputation is due to its low visibility. As a crawling creature, it must stay hidden from many of its predators and operate away from the spotlight. Hence, the second theme for 2025 is that what is currently in the spotlight might have to hide and what is hidden will come to light.

The snake embodies more Yin than Yang traits, yet it is far from slow! Its renowned agility bestows upon this creature exceptional intelligence, enabling it to have the capacity to live a long live. Indeed, be it its lifespan or its impressive body length, make the snake a symbol of longevity. In the Far East, it is frequently represented as a circle of life or a symbol of 8 for eternity. Therefore, in 2025, we are likely to uncover more life sustaining secrets.

The snake of Asclepius, or the pair of snakes of the Caduceus, have long been symbols representing medical doctors and the pharmaceutical industry in the Western world. And just consider that it was Eve, Adam's other half, who's got all the blame for following the serpent, whilst we are doing it every day.

In Chinese Medicine, the snake is linked to both the Water Element, and thus the Kidneys, and the Earth Element, and thus the Spleen, as snakes can inhabit water or earth. This year, these two organs will receive a celestial boost but will also demand more of our focus. The blend of the two is beneficial for fertility, digestion, blood and liquids in the body and all transformative processes, including deep healing, within our bodies. This is an ideal year to address and heal deep-rooted traumas and chronic illnesses.

In fact, the association of snakes with longevity is referred to the physical body more so than to the spiritual aspects of our being. It is also founded on the distinctive phenomenon of skin shedding in snakes. As a result, in 2025, anticipate that people, including yourself, will change their image and the way they present themselves to the world. This transformative ability is more inherently feminine, making it more prevalent among women. It already occurs at various stages in a woman's life, when she becomes a mother, a grandmother, or matures into womanhood. And this year, anyone can have their Cinderella experience!

As a side note, the symbolism of a snake is commonly associated with a woman in both Eastern and Western cultures. Consider Eve again, who accepted the message of the serpent and gave life to first human successors. Similarly, in ancient Chinese mythology, the deity Nü Gua, known as the ancestor of humankind, is portrayed as being half woman and half serpent. In Eastern Europe, the tale of Eglé and the snake highlights the remarkable transformative power of femininity (pictured below).

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"Eglė, Queen of Serpents" by A. Algminas(40 x 30 in. oil on canvas)

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Green is the Wood Element

What about the governing Element in 2025? It will remain the same, as both 2024 and 2025 are governed by the Wood energy. Wood Element is linked with green colour, Spring, with growth, childhood, creativity, overstepping the boundaries in order to find new experiences to learn from. Wood element is associated with Liver and Gallbladder, so these two organs will continue receiving an extra energetic boost in 2025. Utilize this energy to detox, particularly during the spring season. For inspiration, take a look at my Loving-3-phase-detox for ideas of a gentle detox.

The Wood Element will add Yang energy to the Snake in 2025, it will keep the snake out of its den most of the time. The qualities of agility, reactivity and creativity will get an extra boost this year. Therefore, dedicate yourself to creative projects, move quickly by avoiding obstacles, keeping in sight your goal. Have faith in the process!

With the addition of Wood energy to deep healing of the snake, it can be inferred that the healing processes in 2025 will be rapid. The healing will be both profound and swift. The rapid pace of healing will bring a certain ease to otherwise pain-staking processes. So, make the most of this by using the ageless method of acupuncture as the healing medium for your body, mind and soul in the coming year. The upcoming year presents the perfect opportunity to release old patterns and traumas that have become embedded in you but do not align with your future fulfillment nor destiny.

The balanced Wood Element, and therefore a healthy Liver, will offset the Snake's excessive energy of the Water and Earth Elements. Water is linked with the emotion of fear and Earth with the emotion of worry. If the Liver is weak, the fearful energy of the snake is likely to freeze the growth and a successful completion of a project or a healing process. Analogically, if Liver is weak it will not be able to push through the worry. Keep this in mind when you wonder why progress, particularly in regaining your health, is lacking.

In summary, unlike the highly Yang, dynamic, fierce, and daring Wood Dragon of 2024, the upcoming year will concentrate its energy on internal realms, which are less visible and profoundly transformative. Although, it will remain rapid, expansive, and action-packed nonetheless. Therefore, in 2025 harness the power of shedding your skin, moving between your life roles, embracing a new image, navigating obstacles in an almost shape-shifting manner. In Chinese culture the Green Snake is a symbol of hope, fortune, longevity and prosperity among other, which is what I sincerely wish for all of you in the coming new year 2025!

Click the button below to request a New Lunar Year gift from DoroTao. Enter: "NEW LUNAR YEAR 2025" in the email to get a 25% discount on your next treatment. Conditions below apply.

NEW LUNAR YEAR 2025 GIFT

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The bitter side of Love - Summer Chicory flowers story

Initially, it might seem harsh to equate Love with a bitter flavour because of our cultural link between bitterness and displeasure. However, consider how many people enjoy drinking coffee or tea. Both beverages have a bitter taste, with coffee being more bitter than tea. This suggests that our negative perceptions of bitterness may need some reconsideration.

What is the function of bitter in Chinese Medicine? Bitter has the energetic effect of descending. Whether it is to send down a big and heavy meal or calming overly excited Heart, it has a downward directionality.

You might wonder, if love is about elevation and passionate energy, then bitter surely works in the opposite way, correct? Well, let's explore it further.

In Chinese Medicine (and likewise in Classical Greek philosophy) there are Five fundamental elements/energies on which all material and immaterial existence is based. The Five Elements of Chinese Medicine are: Fire, Earth, Metal, Water and Wood; and everything can be associated with these elements.

Fire is associated with the Summer season, with fire, with the red colour, with the Heart, with Love and with the bitter taste. That already suggest that bitter tasting herbs, especially blue-violet Chicory flowers, are going to be beneficial to the Heart and its emotion of love.

Studying Bach flower essences has helped me grasp the significance of this bitter herb in relation to the emotion of Love. Edward Bach wrote about people who need the Chicory essence:

"…people are full of love and care for their families and friends. But they expect to receive love and attention in return, with interest, and feel slighted and unnecessarily hurt if they don’t get all they expect.

Their great love can lead them to hold onto their loved ones and try to keep them dependent and close to hand.

This may stifle the development of other personalities, or simply drive people away.

When we fall into this state the remedy helps bring out the positive side of Chicory: love given unconditionally and in freedom."

Chicory flower essence

To me, the significance lies in how Chicory serves to strengthen and solidify the emotion of love, making it even more lasting. Reflecting on it, in any loving relationships there comes a point where we must acknowledge and accept something about our partner or family member that may not agree perfectly with us and we may attempt to impose our will rather than let the other be. The bitter-tasting Chicory helps us with accepting the other lovingly, sending it down, swallowing the facts, and by doing so our loving feelings are actually anchored down.

This process in Five Elements describes the dynamic of the Fire and the Water element. Water element corresponds to the Winter season, the colour blue, the Kidneys and the emotion of fear. By ancoring the emotion of Love in the depths of Water energy, the Heart may become unsure and insecure. Hence the blue-violet blooms of Chicory serve as a perfect bridge between the Fire and Water element; supporting the Heart and assuring its connection with the enduring and life-sustaining Water element.

In conclusion, enduring, profound and lasting love requires bitterness as a crucial ingredient. Without it, love may remain superficial, self-centered, conditional or fleeting.

Now... I am off to finish my Chicory flower essence I have harvested and infused earlier today, potentiated with crystals.

If you would like to get my Chicory flower essence contact me by clicking below:

Contact for Chicory flower essence

Loving-3-phase-detox for Spring rejuvenation

There needs to be a balance in everything and that includes a detox programme.

Our body is so intelligent it detoxes anyway, daily and seasonally, better still if we give it a helping hand.

There are many obvious reasons for doing a periodic detox: the pollution we are surrounded by, including industrialised food, the medicines we take (including vaccines), the endogenous substances our bodies produce under stress which interrupt smooth elimination and the little physical exercise we do to oxygenate the body, are just a few examples.

No doubt, every now and then, our body requires our loving attention. In fact, the intention of a detox should be the desire to give our body some loving attention. Hence, the loving-3-phase-detox is designed to be gentle on your systems, yet effective. Having convinced you as to "why", let me explain "when" and "how" to detox.

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When? There are only two times of the year when the energy is propense to detox: one is in Spring and the other is in Autumn. Spring is when the activity of Liver is at its peak, Autumn when the Colon helps us to eliminate (especially the parasites). Still the Spring time has no equals for the all-around detox. The energies in our bodies are rising and moving, which aids in the clearing out process.

How? The key words are: in a loving, gentle and phased approach. According to the Chinese Medicine, the first, most external way to eliminate is via the Bladder, the water system. Starting from the water soluble toxins we skim the first layer of debris, eliminate toxic heat, acute inflammations but at the same time warm up and sustain the body in preparation for the next stage: transforming the phlegm. During the second stage we transform the more dense body fluids which form humidity and phlegm (giving the rise to chronic illnesses). We also prepare the intestines, ensuring their proper movement and elimination, setting up the ground for lipid soluble elimination that comes from the Liver filtering in the third stage.

Whereas we could do all of this at the same time, phasing out in three stages, ideally spread over 6 weeks, gives our body time to deal with each stage in turn. You could assign 10 days or minimum 7 days, for each phase.

Another important principle is to gradually eliminate foods that inhibit detoxification and include those that aid each stage of the detox. The gradual elimination is more gentle and the body does not go into the "deprivation" mode. What's more, I suggest when you eliminate a certain food, you replace it with a substitute, at least initially, for your body not to feel the lack, which may make it go into "storage mode" rather than elimination. So, for example a substitute for a coffee could be cacao (100% dark chocolate or hot cacao in the morning with honey to get a boost); a substitute for wine could be apple juice or apple cider vinegar diluted in water. Watch this space #loving3phasedetox for more substitute ideas to come on Facebook or Instagram.

It is important to highlight that the foods eliminated in the phase one and two are not included until the end of the detox programme. Even then, I recommend you to include coffee, alcohol, sugar, gluten, diary and meats as gradually as they were eliminated, one food at the time. As a matter of fact, you are likely to feel so good at the end of the programme you will feel more loving towards your body anyway.

I have created the loving-3-phase-detox with the following balancing principles in mind:

1. flowing with the seasonal cycle of the Nature to start in early Spring;

2. whilst eliminating certain foods from your diet you substitute with others for gentle effects;

3. gradual inclusion of clearing out foods, herbs and/or supplements;

4. gradual increase of physical activity as the Spring energy rises;

5. phased progression including one system at the time: urinary/blood (Kidneys), thick liquids (Spleen & Intestines) and lipids (Liver).
   

Below you find a summary table to aid you in designing your ingredients of the loving-3-phase-detox. Apart from the foods to eliminate, you have the suggestions of the substitutes, as well as foods, herbs and supplements to include in each phase, which help with that particular system involved. The final part of the table suggests routines you will benefit from in particular.

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	Phase I week 1 & 2	Phase II week 3 & 4	Phase III week 5 & 6
System / Organs involved	Urinary and Blood Kidneys & Bladder	Denser body fluids Spleen & Intestines	Blood and lipids Liver & Gallbladder
Elimination	Water	Phlegm	Lipids
Energetic	Warming up	Transforming	Moving
Foods to eliminate	coffee, alcohol	sugar and gluten	meat, diary
Foods as substitutes	barley coffee, cacao, green tea, apple juice, apple cider vinegar in water	some dry fruits and honey, gluten free grains (rice, buckwheat)	pulses, chickpeas, small fish and sweet water fish, eggs, tofu, nuts
Foods to include	algae, alfalfa sprouts, parsley, eggs	millet, linseed, kefir, apples, goji berry	cruciferous veggies, green vegetables, garlic, onion, ginger, whole cereal grains
Herbs to include	cleavers, nettles, horsetail, burdock root, birch sap	cinnamon, cloves, aloe juice, red clover	milk thistle, dandelion, artichoke,
Supplements to include	adaptogens, vit.C, magnesium, spirulina/algae	probiotics, chrome, magnesium, psyllium	magnesium, vit.B complex, Vit.A, omega 3-6-9
In the morning	warm water with lemon, ginger and honey	warm water with bentonite clay or zeolite, oats with cinnamon & cloves	half a grapefruit
In the evening	turmeric milk	miso soup, activated charcoal,	malic acid or apple juice with warm water
Physical activity	min 20min walk a day, thermal or epsom baths 2-3 times a week, a massage or acupuncture detox	min. 30min walk a day + Qi Gong, Yoga or other excercise 30min a day	min. 30min walk a day + 30 min of daily exercise + 2-3x a week one hour of aerobic activity

For any doubts, questions or clarifications contact me here.

For any suggestions, comments or experiences to share, please go to my Facebook or Instagram page and search for #loving3phasedetox.