As Wood gives way to Fire, expect truth to accelerate. Your truth. Global truths. Things that used to be tolerable may become irritating. Things that were vague will beckon a clear decision. Things that were hidden seek expression.

So the opening instruction of the Horse year is restraint that refines power, not restraint that represses it. Restraint here is respect. Power that waits for the right timing becomes clean. Power that rushes, fractures. And this is where the Snake meets the Horse. The Horse is visible power. The Snake is invisible calibration.

It is still deep winter here in February in Minnesota. The ground is asleep under a blanket of white. The sap is not yet rising in the trees. The birds are quieter, accept for the occasional woodpecker’s drum. And the light remains soft, even though we gain minutes by the day. There is a stillness in the natural world that’s easy to miss if we’re generally maintaining the same busy routines all year. Our focus has gone elsewhere, now that the major holidays of winter have pas