2025: Year of the Wood Snake
2025 Wood Snake: 1/29/25 – 2/17/26 (lunar new year dates based on PST)
Before you bid the yang wood dragon adieu, please consider:
What inner and outer surprises emerged this past year—and what new growth did those surprises lead to?
Did you forge new paths, grow new branches, and establish solid structures to be filled out in the years ahead?
Did you set healthy boundaries that support beneficial growth?
Did you include “the benefit of all” into your personal plans?
Did you send strong taproots deep into truly nourishing ground?
And now…
Are you ready to shed old skin and move forward with renewed gleam?
Are you ready to explore the territory around those branches and taproots—to leaf out and establish a web of nourishing rootlets?
Are you ready to dwell in your potential while looking into the distance in order to craft a plan flexible enough to guide you forwards in an era of uncertainty?
Most importantly, are you ready to balance your planning and growth with moments of stillness, receptivity, and observation?
Welcome to the Yin Wood Snake Year of 2025.
(Please revisit last year’s post for a thorough exploration of the climate of wood/wind generally—how to utilize wood’s capacity for growth, vision, healthy boundaries, and benevolence, and how to evolve your way out of wood’s pitfalls of frustration, anger, and feeling stuck.)
Yin Wood
The climate of the 2025 Snake year is yin wood. We all—including zodiacal animals—behave differently in various climates. So how might a snake slither through yin wood?
First, let’s consider that wood is a more yang-oriented phase of the five-phase cycle. Think dawn and morning—awakening and getting moving. Think spring—birthing, sprouting, growing outwards and upwards towards the light. This is yang stuff. Yang wood (dragon year, 2024) is the Qi of breaking open the husk of a seed, thrusting shoots, and growing taproots, trunks, and branches. Yang is active, so in the wood phase, growth is oriented towards aspiration, visible accomplishment, and establishing structures.
But a tree cannot build itself without sunlight and nutrients. Here’s where yin wood plays its essential role of providing nourishment. Yin wood is the Qi of fanning out into smaller branches and sunlight-catching leaves, and growing a network of rootlets that draw moisture and nutrients in from the soil. Yin is receptive, so in the climate of wood, we grow towards that which receives nourishment.
Now take into account that globally we are experiencing a deficiency of yin and a rising of yang. Polar icecaps (yin is cold and still) are melting because global temperatures are rising (yang is hot and quick). Industrial advancements quickened the pace of human life, but technological advancements are now exponentially quickening the pace of human life. In these climactic conditions, yin is all the more necessary, but it’s also increasingly less available. Cultivating yin is at this point a revolutionary and necessary act. This year's climate supports pausing to breathe and assess, nap-taking, introspection, meditation, and strategic and gentle actions such as activists working in nonviolent ways.
Here’s where yin wood can come in handy. Wood Qi is strategic by nature (so is snake Qi). We can use this planning ability in 2025 to establish healthy, sustainable rhythms of rest during this yin year between the wood dragon and the fire horse years. Believe me, you will be glad you rested well and deeply in 2025 once the fire horse starts galloping its fiery gallop in February 2026. We can also build things behind the scenes that will emerge radiant in next year’s yang fire horse.
Snake Qi—Yin Fire
Each of the twelve animals has a native element/phase. Snake’s native phase is yin fire. This is like smoldering coals used to cook food. It’s also the aspect of fire that clings to its fuel. The fuel of fire is wood, and since this is a wood year, we have the ingredients for a lot of fire. I encourage you to plan wisely with that in mind. Fire is powerful, and without tending and guidance, it can be quite destructive. So how might we use this well-fed yin fire wisely?
If we have a lot of coals, we can make enough food to share with those who need it. So if you find that you have extra time, energy, or resources, please consider supporting others who are less resourced—or (in alignment with snake’s long-range planning Qi) supporting the growth of beneficial projects and organizations.
In regards to that clinging aspect of yin fire combined with yin wood, be especially discerning about the types of nourishment you draw in. Clean fuel burns clean, while toxic fuel releases toxicity into the air. But also this is a yin year, so some of the nourishment you need is paradoxically less.
How can you create more space in your mind, heart, and schedule?
What nourishment reaches you without any effort on your part?
What practices keep you tuned towards moments of stillness, pause, and reflection?
What would you benefit from consuming less of this year (physically, mentally, relationally, etc.)?
Snake Resources
Snake is discerning and strategic, elegant and potent. Snake hides and reveals, and one of the first orders of business for the snake year is to shed an old skin (or maybe a few), allowing a more sleek and lustrous self to glide magnificently forwards. Start out the year by streamlining and cutting away the unnecessary.
What “old skins” are you ready to shed?
What will it take for you to shed those skins?
What supports will enable you to let go?
But old skins don’t just fall away. Snakes purposely slither their bodies over rough rocks and bark to break up, loosen, and finally leave behind their old skins. Skin-shedding is an active process. You might:
Clean out closets, shelves, drawers, and storage spaces.
Distance yourself from activities, communities, or relationships that no longer fit in the flow of your life.
Let go of detrimental habits—including mental, emotional, and behavioral habits, as well as outdated, limiting, or otherwise false belief systems.
Let go of who you once were. It can be particularly helpful to let go of old clothing you associate with an outdated version of yourself.
Let go of what the world once was.
You might shed some skin at the beginning of the year, or you might spend all year slithering over rocks and bark in order to slough off an old skin in time for a big reveal in 2026’s fire horse. Maybe you’ll shed many skins throughout the year. What feels true for you? You won’t know how many skins you’ll shed until the year is said and done. We are still in the wood/wind phase, so continue to be open to inner and outer surprises.
The Snake as Potential
Both dragon and snake have great potency, but while the dragon (as the yang animal of the pair) shows its power in all its glory, the snake (as the yin animal of the pair) is more strategic in how it uses, conceals, and reveals its power. A snake coils up to protect itself and conserve its energy, but just as yang follows yin, a coiled snake will one day strike when it feels certain it will win its aim without harm to itself.
What practices and/or studies will support you in cultivating and building your power?
When is it most beneficial (for you and for all) to develop your work behind the scenes?
When is it most beneficial (for you and for all) to share what you have been developing?
Remember that everyone and everything around you (including the Earth and its climate) is working with snake Qi this year too, so that means a great deal will be developing behind the scenes. Because this snake is working within the wood/wind phase, the unpredictable nature of how and when new developments emerge is increased. Wind is an invisible but powerful force. It stops and starts, changes direction, and blows gently in one moment and in destructive gusts in another moment.
Mind Your Spine
Consider how sinuously the snake moves. This ability comes from its spine and its strength. This is a good year to tend your spine, which means strengthening your back muscles as well as improving flexibility (for best results strengthen first, and then improve flexibility—injuries occur when we put too much emphasis on flexibility and not enough emphasis on strengthening). Engage in practices you enjoy that support this essential part of your physical stance and power. The spine is a major focus in my online, low-cost Qigong classes.
The wood phase also relates to the tendons and ligaments and to our ability to be flexible without breaking. Be strategic like a snake about your health, and establish sustainable and enjoyable exercise routines that support your spine and joints, which in turn support your freedom and power.
Snake Shadow
Snake Qi can manifest in less savory ways when snakes feel hungry or threatened. This can create patterns of jealousy, intrigue, and secretly developing emotions, beliefs, plans, and powers that are harmful to oneself and others. Snake will coil up when it feels threatened, but sometimes the threat isn’t real. Before you shut down and go into secrecy mode, talk with people, and make sure you understand where others are truly coming from. And make sure that whatever you develop in secret is for the benefit of all (including yourself).
Mystical and Mysterious Snake
Snake can be a loner in order to cultivate its mystical interests or work on its master plans behind the scenes. The last snake year was the water snake in 2013, which was a deeply internal snake because water Qi is a time to abide in the vast, dark womb of potential. The wood snake of 2025, however, needs to get out into the community more. Dip into the background, and then balance that with time with others. This inwards/yin—outwards/yang pulse is like the snake’s body rhythmically curving left and right in order to move forwards.
Wood snake in context
Yang wood (2024 dragon) emerged from yin water (2023 rabbit) just as a new taproot and shoot emerge from a seed that has soaked up enough moisture to expand and activate its potential and soften its husk. The growth established in 2024’s yang wood dragon determines the areas of nourishment we are able to fan out into in 2025. The nourishment we access this year will in turn support the blossoms and fragrance we emit and the blazing movements we will make in 2026’s yang fire horse. Fire horse will be native fire in the climate of fire. Translation: 2026 will be intense!
Yang and yin breathe with each other and they breathe each other into being. If you remember nothing else from this post, remember that.
In 2025’s yin wood snake, rest. Shed old skin. Receive a new gleam. Creatively explore. Plan. And rest some more and some more and some more before 2026's fire horse sweeps you up on an epic journey—and puts you to some serious work.
Thanks for reading, and here's wishing you an abundant, vibrant, and luminous year of the snake,
Rae
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