Hold Your Horses!

It's not the Year of the Horse yet — it's still the Year of the Snake!

You can’t go on social media right now without seeing a flurry of posts about 2026 being the Year of the Horse. Whoa there, pardner! It’s not officially the Year of the Horse until the beginning of the Lunar New Year, which falls on February 17 this year.

Right now, we’re at the tail end of the Year of the Snake. Snake sheds its skin to begin anew. In magical practices, Snake is an energy of transformation, growth, and rebirth. Snake energy is something to embrace, not fear. Snake represents an opportunity to shed what no longer fits, what restricts you, and what keeps you stale.

We still have about six weeks left in this Year of the Snake, and this is ample time to make use of this energy. Take some time to analyze what, and who, stifles your growth or saps your joy. Write them down. Consider each one, and how you might “shed” that problem. It doesn’t mean you need to leave a situation or relationship — the thing you might need to shed is how you react to it.

You can’t change people, but you CAN change how you react to them — or don’t. Let go of trying to change people, and it’s a first step toward serenity. People will be who or what they are, and it’s up to you to choose whether or not to continue that relationship, and if you choose to do so, to choose how you will participate in that relationship.

As for situations, are you truly locked in to where you work or live? If so, brainstorm other strategies for coping or dealing with that situation. Imagine possibilities. Don’t discount them as impossible — let possibility and hope sit there and gestate for a bit. If you set hope and possibility in your situation as a goal — an intention, magically speaking — new options may appear. Conversely, if you identify something as “impossible,” that is what the Universe will hear, and unless it’s feeling the need to yank you out of that situation, like an emergency caesarian section lest you die in the womb, “impossible” it will remain.

As it pertains to situations, I like to visualize our relationship with the Universe as locks and keys. Whatever lock you hold up, the Universe will respond with the correct key. If you hold up “impossible,” there’s no key to fit that lock. Hold up the “possible” lock, and the Universe will find that key.

So. Six weeks lie ahead for you to identify what isn’t working, what is unsatisfactory, what is toxic. Now is not the time to solve these issues, it’s only time to be ready to release them. Slough them off like a snake who has outgrown that old, tight, dry skin, and is ready to be reemerge fresh and supple.

The time will come for solutions, strategies, and forward progress. That is the realm of Horse. For the remaining Year of the Snake weeks, identify your obstacles. As you enter into the Year of the Horse, you’ll focus your energy on soaring over them.