© Copyright Eréne Lejeune. All rights reserved. Please do not excerpt this article.
“Go yin AND go home...”
...Friendship, intuition and noble sacrifice are the main characteristics of the year. According to Confucian thought(5th-6th cen. BCE) there are 5 “constant” relationships. I’ve modernized these relationships for our purposes as: leader(ruler) and constituent (subject), parent and child, older sibling and younger sibling, spouse and spouse, and friend and friend.
The yin Water Rabbit this year is very generous for parent/ (younger)child relationships and friendship. Rabbits tend to be one of the most adept at finding their friends. In fact, their survival depends upon it. Being adorable can literally save their lives and being in a group makes a single rabbit less of a target. In all the hectic forward motion of modern life, the generous feeling of giving and receiving from friendship is a joyous stop-gap allowing us to remember our essential selves.
How do we feel when we know we are unconditionally loved? What is life like if we simply accept our friends for who they are and can just be a real friend? Without conditional relationship, we can experience our real, pure and essential character — whatever it is. This is the beauty and pure interpretation of the yin principle in this context. If you think about it, friendship is the relationship that has the most choice and inherent freedom; and therefore, the most opportunity for unwinding personal fate.
The ability to establish or reconnect with nourishing and supportive humans this year is available to absolutely everyone. The intuition of the rabbit character will help you tune into that “gut” feeling and to discard prior entanglements and life choices/directions that no longer serve you in order to understand the fundamental joy of an ordinary home life and the simple but immense gift of embodiment itself. “Ordinary” in this way, is the true contentment of the human condition.
Humans, although pretty fascinating organisms, are not the center of this whole situation we find ourselves in. Nor are we entirely in charge all the time. We affect, and, are affected. Our place in the universe takes continual self- reflection, negotiation, and occasionally a bit of nudging...
IN: Go yin AND go home, finding a hunny bunny, having twins, abstract art, peaceful protest in constant and large numbers, cancel stuff and things not people, mend your knickers and darn your socks, advances in genomics, anonymous donations, watch “Mission Joy” a very Rabbit-style film about the special friendship of His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu (co-directed by our family friend, Louie Psihoyos), chosen family, animal rights, veggie stew, massage and maybe just a little drama
OUT: mean gossip, fast fashion, proving yourself, hoarding, waiting until next year to deal with relationship issues, extreme sports, war, pop culture, being cool, letting yourself go/sweatpants, impulse shopping, dictators, fad diets, junk and trinkets, dessert
Read the full article here! © Copyright Eréne Lejeune all rights reserved. Please do not excerpt this article.