This past New Moon marked the beginning of the Chinese Lunar Year. We have entered into the year of the Wood Snake which lasts until the New Moon in February 2026. For these next few weeks until the next coming Full Moon, Chinese all over the world will be celebrating this new year phase, which is the coming of Spring in the Northern hemisphere, with food, drink, fire-crackers/works together with family and friends. This is the time when all the astrological predictions and anticipations for the new year start to get thrown around. The Snake is not one of the most “popular” versions of the 12 animals. The Dragon or the Tiger are especially popular years, if one is not female; Tiger female children are/were often considered undesirable as they are said to be proud and willful. But why would the Snake not be well liked?

In western Judeo-Christian-based culture, the Snake is considered vile and is loathed, as it is the being responsible for the banishment of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden. Most humans and mammals possess a possible evolutionary-based fear of Snakes, with an estimate of one third of humans having a fear and only 3 to 4 percent have actual ophidiophobia (Snake phobia). The ancient Chinese and many other traditional cultures around the world however have honored this animal; the fact that the Snake is one of the 12 animals on Chinese horoscope is one proof of this.

In Chinese mythology, after the Universe and the Earth were created, the goddess,
Nǚ Wā  女媧  descended to the Earth. Mountains, rivers, trees, plants and animals already existed, however humans did not. It is said that she felt lonely and as she knelt down by a river, she saw her own reflection and decided to create human beings out of clay, in her own image.  Nǚ Wā is described as having the upper body of a human and the lower body of a serpent. The Chinese creator of humans is half Snake and half human. Why would Snakes be revolting to the Chinese if the Mother of human beings was half one herself? I believe the repulsion of the Snake comes not from the Chinese themselves but the syncretizing of Eastern with Western belief systems. This is a common occurrence in the modern world, where there is often a merging of traditions and ideas from across the globe, as cultures collide with one another.

In fact, if we look at many cultures from North and Central America, to Africa, to Asia, to Australasia and even to Europe we will observe that the Snake is a creature that is traditionally honored. It is often associated with fertility, renewal, wisdom and are protectors as well as messengers of the Divine. Even the Greek God of Medicine, Asclepius, carries a staff with a serpent entwined on it, which was later adopted by Western medicine as the symbol of medicine and is still in use to this day. In ancient Egypt, Greece and India, the Ouroboros, the symbol of the snake eating its tail, is a representation of the unending cycle of life, death, rebirth. The Snake, as it physiologically sheds its skin, represents the ability of life to transform.

The Snake exists on every continent on the Earth except Antarctica, in dry desert environments, tropical, humid ones, flatlands as well as mountains. There over 3000 different species of Snakes, of which 600 are venomous but only 7 percent can actually kill or wound a human. Maybe instead of fear or loathing of the Snake, we can appreciate it as a living being on the Earth and give it its due respect for its remarkable abilities. For this year of the Snake, let us learn to embody the Snakes qualities of flexibility, resilience, to learn to shed our skins by letting go what has not served us, so that we may transform our lives as well as our world around us.



Image Year of the Snake by ICM
Image Tutanchamun from Wikicommons
 

 
Over the past month, I have been carrying my Rubik’s Cube around with me. As a child growing up in the ‘80s, one of my brothers had gotten one and all of us siblings were trying our hand at solving it; I was about 6 years old at the time. An older sister of mine got a method from some of her friends and she tried solving it. I maybe manage 1 out of 6 surfaces. A few years ago, one of my sons was at a birthday party and one of the little trinkets he received from attending was a little Rubik’s Cube. This sparked my interest to solve all 6 sides. I looked up solutions online and I managed to solve it with instructions, but I still had to look at the instructions till that point. Recently, I was watching a documentary and they were just discussing how the Rubik’s Cube has as many as 43,252,003,274,489,856,000 (this would be 43 quintillian) possible variations, into which one can randomly create. Obviously, just 1 of these is the solution, where all 6 sides are matched in color and position. This reminded me of my Cube sitting somewhere in a cupboard, waiting to be solved.
 
Currently, instead of taking out my digital device, let’s say in the tram after work, which I detest doing, I take out my Cube and I am in the process of solving it all the way till I get home. As I do this regularly, I realize that it is a training. Since I found the solution, which involves strategy, dexterity of hand and mind, patience, the ability to memorize sequences and apply them in the right moment, I am now able to solve the Cube without looking up the instructions. This obviously gives me a sense of satisfaction. I am not a super good mathematician but I can do elementary math well enough. I have come to realize the ability to solve the Rubik’s Cube is not necessarily based just on mathematical skill but one that requires discipline, focus, patience, flexibility and the desire to solve a problem.
 
I have spent most of my life finding movement and flexibility with my body in Movement. Now with the Cube, I am finding movement and agility with my hands, fingers as well as mind on an apparatus. I move and twist, paying attention to position and planes: anterior, posterior, superior, inferior, lateral right and left. I have learned to strategize and prioritize, which color needs to match which and when. Since I have studied the solution, I also realized I am basically performing choreography with my hands, which involves memory and rhythm. This is not new to me since dancing from the age of 5. I am not only the performer of the movement but also the choreographer with 54 squares of 6 different colors to maneuver around 6 different planes. Many times, I realize the choreography is not set; sometimes I have to improvise, especially if I wasn’t keeping my focus and forgot where I was in the middle of a sequence. This is when I have to recalibrate my mind and find a new strategy, as my lack of focus doesn’t allow me to follow the set “rules” and I have to invent a new tactic or decide to restart by mixing everything up again. The Cube makes me stay present in the moment.
 
So, as I sit in the tram to get home or wait somewhere for something or someone, I can be doing my life training on my Cube. The Rubik's Cube can be a lesson for life. It can even be a meditation, if we choose it to be so. It can be a reminder that life doesn’t always go according to plan, which most times it doesn’t. It’s a matter of perspective whether to view the unplanned as a problem or just as a path in life, where we can experience being in a new or different state. It teaches flexibility, patience and resilience, among other things.     



Image by Elaine

​​We just passed the phase of the Autumnal Equinox, around the 21st of September here in the Northern hemisphere. The "change" from Late Summer to Autumn has reared its severe head. Here, we have been presented with 20-degree temperature difference overnight; warm and sunny in the day hitting mid-20s, then down to 5 degrees in the night. Our bodies, with pores wide open like windows of our houses in Summer, were shocked into closure. If not, we got sick with a cold or digestive distress, forcing us to stay in bed under warm covers, which in a way is a form of drastic closure. 
 
After the Autumnal Equinox passes, the light of the sun diminishes every day; over a minute at sunrise and over 2 minutes at sunset. What does this do to living beings on this hemisphere? It makes us, animals and plants, focus more inward; our energies begin to be more Yin concentrated. It is then not surprising that we modern humans stay more indoors, as it is colder, darker and we feel less active, possibly even tired. If you have been feeling this way these past few weeks, there is nothing wrong with you. Nature and the weather affects us because we are a part of nature. What we can do is to honor this connection by taking time to do quiet things, to rest and sleep more. Also, to eat certain foods that will help the process of moving inward, such as with root vegetables. There is this idea in Chinese Medicine and other forms of Complementary Medicine that "like treats like"; if we want to feel more rooted, we should ingest roots, as they will guide our energetic body to create more "rooted connections."
 
One of my favorites is Sweet Potato, 番薯 Fān Shǔ, Ipomoeas batatas in Latin. That's the plant pictured above. For the past few years, we have been planting this wonderful vegetable in our garden as it is a plant that almost all parts - leaf, stem, flower and root, are edible. Its leaves are heart-shaped and they creep and hang off the edge of our veggie-raised-beds, with its blossom so like the Morning Glory. They can propagate by leaf-cuttings but if you had a root that was sprouting, like many root vegetables, you can put this root in a bit of water to allow the sprout to grow leaves and then place them in the Earth. One can boil the roots in water with a little salt, add them to curries, fry/ bake them like Sweet Potato fries or make Sweet Potato pie with walnuts, like they do in the US for Thanksgiving. In East Asia, we make Rice Congee with Sweet Potato roots, deep fry them with a batter to make tempura in Japanese cuisine or in ball-form as a sweet snack in Malaysia (fān shǔ dàn) or served in a sweet soup in China. We also eat the leaves and stems, in the Spring-Summer seasons, as a stir-fry like you can with spinach, with a little garlic and soy sauce. They are beautiful beings that thrive in sunny, warm conditions, but are very sensitive to frost, as they are originally from Central/ South America like the regular potato. As such, it is now soon time to harvest the roots in our garden.
 
In Chinese Medicine, Sweet Potato is sweet in flavor, neutral to cooling in temperature and, affects the Spleen, Stomach, Large Intestine and Kidney meridians. When a food or herb is naturally sweet in flavor, it often will tonify Qi. As such Sweet Potato's functions include strengthening Spleen to promote Qi, increase mother's milk production, as well as helps support bowel movements, remove toxins from the body, builds the Yin in the body, which then treats dryness and inflammation. From a Western nutritional perspective, its orange color already suggests that it is high in Beta-Carotene, Vitamin A. Sweet Potato is also high in Vitamin C and E, potassium and fiber. Its natural sweetness and being a root vegetable, versus fruits, has a low-glycemic index and can help stabilize blood-sugar imbalances such as diabetes. Hence, one can eat it as a dessert without having any processed sugar or fructose. I know people who do not tolerate night-shade vegetables, such as potatoes and tomatoes, but Sweet Potatoes are not night-shades, as such very agreeable with those who have these issues. As often the case with most things, too much of a good thing transforms it to a hindrance. Eat it or anything with consciousness, LESS IS MORE.  
 
I find the Sweet Potato plant so versatile and resilient, taking root all over the world; from the Americas to Asia-Pacific, Africa and Europe through the Columbian Exchange, but also it has been found that Polynesia had cultivated this plant before the British came to the islands. We can learn a lot from this plant in being adaptable yet being able to root almost in every continent on the Earth. Best of all to go inward to find our own roots at this time of year.
 
 
 
Image Sweet Potato Plant and Blossom by Elaine
Image Sweet Potato Roots by Suanpa on Pixabay

 
I wondered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees, 
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
 
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
 
The waves beside them danced; 
but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed--and gazed--but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:
 
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon the inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
 
 
William Wordsworth (1804)
 
 
It is a cool Spring day; the sky is blue and the sun is shining. Yesterday, the sky was grey and it was snowing. On the ground the snow is gone but the coolness prevails. Last week, it was dry, warm and sunny; all the plants were blossoming. I heard the exclamations of joy from people around me of how beautiful and warm it was, but also the apprehension of how dry it was for the plants. I listen and observe. I note that it is Spring, a time of extreme change. The weather of this time of year can change from one end of the spectrum to the other in a day, which we experienced this past week. 
 
What has caught my eye and my consciousness are the Daffodils; those yellow, golden rays of sunlight that have burst through the Earth and prevailed through sun, dryness, rain, snow and cold. As a young student in a former British colony, I learned the poems of the British Romantic poets, such as William Wordsworth, which I could not really understand then since I lived in the tropics and had never experienced real Daffodils growing in the early Spring. What a wonder they are!
 
Daffodils or Narcissus are bulbous plants, that stay dormant for more than half the year. Then at some point in time in late winter, they manifest their first green, pointy shoots out of the Earth. Every ray of sunshine nurtures their inching-shoots out of this fantastically-designed bulb, that not only nourishes with food, but also protects this being like a cocoon as it develops its bud into flower. We admire how humans design and create intricate things but look at this "simple" bulb that keeps growing and receding year after year, even if we do not really put much attention or care to it, in the most extreme of temperatures (between 30-35 degrees Celsius difference). Through its long leaves, this being gets enough food and energy to go into dormancy from Summer to the end of Winter. I read that bulbous plants, including the Daffodils, have been in existence since the Miocene geological epoch, between 23.03 to 5.33 million years ago, as a result of the decrease in global temperatures. Crazy, amazing ancient technology that is still functioning! 
 
Now, every time I pass by a troop of daffodils dancing in the breeze under a tree, I recite this lovely over-200-year-old Wordsworth homage to some very ancient beings, who not only impress me with their bell-shaped-flair-skirted fair blossoms but every aspect of their existence, most especially their resilience to the snow, the heat and the changes of Spring.
 
 
 
Image by Elaine