The Year of the Yin Wood Snake
Come Shed Your Skin with Qigong Medicine!
Our qigong retreat, “Shedding”, honors the Year of the Yin Wood Snake that slithers into our lives on January 29, 2025. The twisting, turning movements of the Snake cause sudden upheavals and surprising turns of events but they also can activate a deep process of transformation.
In almost every culture’s mythology, a snake appears representing wisdom, healing (Hermes carries a caduceus), initiation and sometimes secret knowledge associated with transformation, death, and regeneration.
In the Hindu tradition, Kundalini is the serpent goddess that lies dormant, asleep at the base of the spine. When she awakens, she undulates up the spine often causing quite intense, sometimes painful, experiences and extraordinary mental and spiritual understandings and awakenings.
And then of course, we can’t forget the serpent in the Garden of Eden!
Take advantage of this potent moment as we enter the year of the Yin Wood Snake. Shed your skin, slither out of your comfort zone, and joyfully incorporate the medicine of Snake energy!
The ancient Chinese thought that a snake is nothing but a baby dragon that is said to have fallen to earth bringing some of the dragon’s intelligence and drive as its gift from the celestial realms.
Mayan mythology describes serpents as being the vehicles by which celestial bodies, such as the sun and stars, cross the heavens. The shedding of their skin made them a symbol of rebirth and renewal. They served as a gateway to the spirit realm and came to be the method in which ancestors or gods manifested themselves. For the Maya, the Vision Serpent was a direct link between the spirit realm of the gods and the physical world.
Come to Palenque, Mexico for
“Shedding, Qigong Medicine for the Year of the Yin Wood Snake”,
January 29-February 4, 2025.
Thoughts on Hexagram #49 - Skinning, Shedding, Reform, Renewal
Every hexagram tells the story of an energetic picture. Hexagram #49 shows The Lake (Metal) over Fire. Fire melts metal which advises us that using inner awareness can melt away what is obsolete and hardened on the outer level.
This is the process of shedding. A snake sheds its skin because it can no longer accommodate its growing size. Shedding means transforming into a new and superior person.
But how? By rejecting old motives, sorrows, memories, and quarrels. Stripping away the protective cover. Eliminating the old so that the truth can emerge.
This renewal re-harmonizes and reunites aspects of ourselves that have been disconnected. This is not the replacement of one thing with another, but the elimination of what is no longer true. This is not “change”. This is transformation,
When we are ready to shed our skin and move forward, we can confidently act to begin a new cycle of time.
