Happy Chinese New Year!
恭喜发财
Great Blessings to you
in the Year of the Metal Rat!
Welcome to the Year of the Metal Rat!
“I am the one who acquires and gathers.
I am one link in the cycle, yet I am also complete on my own.
I aim for great heights and shoot for my target.
For me, life is a joyful journey.
Each searching ends with a new quest.
I am progress, exploration and insight.
I am the womb of activity
I am the rat.”
(Ancient Chinese Poem, author unknown)
This year marks not only the beginning of a new 12-year cycle but the beginning of a new 60-year cycle.
Most notably, this year means
the beginning of a new way of being.
Each year in the cycle is dominated by a specific energy or character determined by universal cycles. According to the ancient wisdom regarding these laws of nature, what does this year mean for you?
The Rat is Energized, Friendly, Intelligent, Sensitive, Hardworking and a Powerful Agent of Change.
The Nature of the Rat: While still in a time of plenty, gather and prepare for leaner times. Invest in long-term benefit.
The Rat Year brings an opportunity to make good use of what will remain a mild economic environment. While there will be market fluctuations, it will still be a time of plenty.
As the natural cycles go, however, lean years will come soon enough. Focus now on gathering and accumulating in advance of those more challenging years.
Get energized and focus your mind and energy on long-term benefits, long-term, virtuous goals and development
The Nature of the Metal Rat: Regularity and Making Progress Through Daily Accumulation
The most important long-term investment is in your health.
Especially this year, focus on establishing routines to support a healthily lifestyle. Every day, bit by bit, what you do regularly will accumulate and produce tremendous results.
You may have already begun to feel this inclination. Follow this natural force and set up a beneficial regimen, routines that you can maintain long-term and rely on to for greater stability and health.
Get those healthy meal plans together. Establish a morning routine that truly supports your mental-emotional-spiritual and physical wellbeing. Make sure you have a movement and exercise plan that works for you.
The most critical investment – make sure you have regular care with acupuncture, massage, or whatever methods you have found important to support your health and wellbeing.
This is more important now than ever before because of the intense level of stress we experience on a consistent basis in modern life.
For healthy people, we strongly recommend regular acupuncture at least one time per month.
Like no other method, acupuncture re-sets the entire body and mind, and aids in avoiding future problems.
If health concerns manifest, then get care right away. Don’t put it off. Start off the year with a checkup and reassessment of your health improvement plan, supplements, diet and exercise plan. Consult with your trusted health care practitioners on these important points.
Its time to fall in love with caring for your good health!
By being methodical and regular with good practices we will make great progress toward virtuous ends.
The Nature of the Metal Rat: Close, Meaningful Friendships are a Necessity.
The Rat is a friendly animal who needs to socialize and cultivate close, meaningful relationships.
This, too, is a long-term investment that requires time to cultivate, but little by little it produces truly valuable results.
Gather with those with whom you can easily share your thoughts and do creative things together – in business and pleasure. It may feel easier this year to engage socially, so don’t miss the opportunity to enjoy time with good friends, both old and new.
Treasure those people for you can help each other in profound and meaningful ways.
Close friendships are a necessary condition for health and happiness. Cultivate these important and precious investments.
The Nature of the Metal Rat: Change Will Wisely Rise Up From Below.
All Rats are fundamentally dominated by Yang Water and yet this Rat is guided by the Metal element. This tells us – that which has been deeply hidden in human society cannot be suppressed any longer. With relevance and urgency, they will be compelled to rise forcibly, cogently to the fore.
At the same time, rigor and systems, learning and research, justice and discerning wisdom will all be of more consequence this year.
So, those issues in human culture that been held down, blocked, residing long and latent beneath the surface, will likely rise up with urgency this year, to be expressed. These are things that need our attention.
By coming to the fore with the power and force of a great ocean wave, we will be compelled to meet the need for urgent positive change.
We must judge these things through the eyes of wisdom. Through judicious insight we will determine what shifts are prudent and necessary to move forward in this new cycle and new way of being.
It is based on these changes that the future will progress.
What the Metal Rat Might Mean for the United States and the World
The Rat is immensely resourceful and intelligent. What’s more, there is a powerful flow of change coming not from the top down but instead will rise from the bottom up.
Here too, latent energies and socio-political issues that have long been unaddressed will rise to the fore, compelling us to take notice and address them with judicious insight and balance. From here we will establish a new foundation upon which the future will unfold.
Here too, latent energies and socio-political issues that have long been unaddressed will rise to the fore, compelling us to take notice and address them with judicious insight and balance. From here we will establish a new foundation upon which the future will unfold.
Consider the events that occurred during the previous Year of the Metal Rat, and you will understand more of what is meant by this.
The year was 1960, and it marked the beginning – the first link in a cycle establishing great change. Here are just a few of the events of that year:
United States and World Politics in 1960:
- John F. Kennedy was elected President. He would follow President Dwight D. Eisenhower who symbolized the gentle, benevolent character of the old post-war era. JFK represented a new era of enlightenment.
- In 1960, as a presidential candidate, JFK secured Martin Luther King’s release from jail. He also proposed the establishment of the Peace Corps, a new agency to be run by the United States government that would focus on the totally novel idea of providing social and economic development assistance around the world.
- A whopping 19 countries gained their independence from the colonial rule of the French, German, Belgian, and English. These included 17 countries in sub-Saharan Africa, the Mediterranean island of Cyprus, and South Africa which formally took leave of the British Commonwealth.
- For the first time in recorded world history, a woman was elected Head of State – Mrs Sirimavo Bandaranaike was named Prime Minister of Sri Lanka.
- OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries) was formed during meeting in Baghdad, Iraq. Members included Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela.
- The Tibetan Parliament-in-Exile is established in Dharmsala, India, under the guidance of the 14th Dalai Lama introducing a democratic system of administration.
- The Soviet Union shot down the U.S. U-2 spy plane and captured its pilot, Francis Gary Powers, escalating the Cold War.
- The capital city of Brazil was established in the totally new, planned city of Brasilia.
Social Change in 1960:
- The FDA approved the birth control pill in the United States ushering in the Sexual Revolution.
- President Eisenhower signed the Civil Rights Act of 1960 which sought to end the suppression of the black vote in the southern United States.
- The U.S. Supreme Court ruled racial segregation unconstitutional.
- Chubby Checker started a new dance craze with “The Twist,” and so was the dawn of Rock n’ Roll.
- The American Heart Association announced the link between smoking tobacco and heart disease.
Technological Change in 1960:
- The United States launched the world’s first nuclear powered Aircraft Carrier the USS Enterprise.
- The Soviet Union launched its Sputnik program.
- NASA launched the Pioneer 5 space probe, the first deep space mission, designed to investigate the interplanetary space between the Earth and Venus.
- The first weather satellite introduced by the U.S.
- Aluminum cans were used for the first time.
- Xerox introduces the first machine to reproduce paper documents.
This year provides us with great opportunity and hope.
May this brief commentary on the Year of the Metal Rat provide insight and support for this new year.
May you be inspired to take this opportunity to create positive change in the world.
We Wish for you the greatest health, wealth and success in this Year of the Metal Rat.
Blessings of health and happiness to you always,
Dr. Devatara and Dr. Evan
