2011-Year of the Metal Rabbit

— Contributed by Karen Carrasco, Instructor at the Western School of Feng Shui Beginning on February 3rd, 2011, we enter the Chinese year of the Metal Hare or Rabbit.   We can all feel the new energies upon us, so let’s take a look…This will be a year to regain our footing after the rip-roaring Metal Tiger year of 2010. The Year of the Rabbit in general is considered a very fortunate year, a Yin year in which the feminine, intuitive influences of our benevolent Moon shine into every heart. Rabbit qualities are considered some of the most desirable for comfortable living and fortunate longevity, as, unlike our western image of the soft, domesticated bunny, the eastern understanding finds the Hare to be one of the most strong willed, clever and agile of the animal signs. Rabbit years contain the same strengths as people born in a rabbit year–calmness, astute heart-centered consideration, a love of order and stability. It is a year that rewards a keen sense of watching which way the wind blows, using your “whiskers” for the directional knowledge to accomplish goals. The long ears of the rabbit invite us to listen very carefully.  Cooperation, compromise and diplomacy are all skills highly rewarded in this year. The ability to proceed with informed methodical precision and intuitive sensibility brings ultimate success.  The rabbit nature loves beauty, art, music and the finer things in life, and will bring these things to those who seek them with grounded confidence. While Rabbit years in general are more low key and restful, encouraging feminine receptivity, 2011 is also a Metal element year, which brings the dynamic mental body into focus.  Metal strengthens our ability to see with renewed clarity what is personally valuable, and to cut out that which we no longer desire.  This will be another year of distilling the essentials–cleansing the impurities, low vibrations and clutter from every corner of our lives.  The big difference between Tiger Metal, 2010, and Rabbit Metal, 2011, is the Great Feminine, the lunar influence, and the upsurge of our own powerful intuitive bodies.  This means we will have a most helpful tool–our “gut” feeling about anything, sharpened and honed to precision, ready to guide the way–especially when we calm down and quiet our inner dialog well enough to hear it, and act quickly, like the clever wild hare who knows just which way to jump at a moment’s notice. This year will be a year to catch your breath and calm your nerves. A year to focus on home, family, security, and diplomacy. Let yourself relax into the gentle waves of steady, fortunate progress that is there for us all.