All about Flower Essences: Wood Snake
We've created a new, premium flower essence blend for the upcoming Year of the Wood Snake!
The next Lunar New Year will arrive on January 29th, 2025, ushering in the Year of the Wood Snake.
In Chinese astrology, it’s said that snake is the “little dragon”, and that it fell from the sky to “dethrone the dragon” from the previous year. In practical terms, this means that the Year of the Wood Snake is going to largely be a continuation of the Year of the Wood Dragon energy— just a little less dramatic and tumultuous.
In contrast, the revolutionary, innovative energy of the Wood Dragon Year will evolve into a smarter campaign of strategic implementation. What lessons were learned in the Year of the Wood Dragon? How can we incorporate those into best practices moving forward into the Wood Snake year? What can we do to take sustainable action with these key learnings and insights?
Keep your eyes peeled for a deep dive post here on Substack exploring all of these and other details— like what industries are going to thrive or get squeezed— in the coming Wood Snake Year.
The little dragon— and the little tree!
The upshot of the coming Wood Snake Year? The large redwood tree that symbolically represented 2024’s Wood Dragon energy is evolving into a more manageable, fruit-bearing tree closer the earth, like an olive tree or a fig tree.
The metaphor? That upward growth can slow a bit, focusing less on rapid movement and expansion into the sky and more on rooting into the earth downward and laterally, producing nourishment, shade, and potential shelter for a slithery, scaled friend.
This image of the smaller tree with edible fruit and lush nourishing ground cover has inspired a new, premium TOTEM Flower Essence Blend: Wood Snake.
This premium blend is made of the Flower Essences from our backyard Fig Tree, Olive Tree, and Nasturtium flowers, offering the synergistic benefits of these powerful plant medicines:
Fig Tree: While TOTEM doesn’t offer Fig as a standalone flower essence, we do have a booming fig tree thriving in our strange, otherworldly backyard garden. This tree— and its plant medicine— represent sustainable, soul-nourishing abundance. You know: the kind that “bears fruit” after long, hard work!
Olive Tree: The singular plant present in our Peace TOTEM Flower Essence, olive tree is excellent for soothing the nerves and maintaining a center of calm and tranquility in a triggering, stimulating and manic world!
Nasturtium: The plant medicine behind our Orange Glower Flower Essence, nasturtium’s booming vines boasting red, purple and yellow flowers offers unparalleled connection to the natural world, our sacral and root chakras, and the health-stimulating benefits of being present and connected to the earth grid.
Together, these flower essences will offer the collective benefits of resilient abundance, personal vitality, and tranquility as we all work to make the lessons of the previous Wood Dragon Year into a sustainable model for real life.
Team Slytherin
Unpopular opinion: Malfoy aside, House Slytherin in the Harry Potter series really was the center of academic and magical excellence at the fictional Hogwarts school.
I mean, Professor Severus Snape was not only the smartest and most accomplished wizard— particularly when it came to defenses against the dark arts and magical potions— but was also secretly the bravest and most heroic character in the story, doing super hard stuff to save Harry Potter’s life.
So, I’m just saying. Team Slytherin all the way;)
And, while a fictional children’s book series may not seem like the most reasonable standard for much, House Slytherin does offer a plethora of relevant attributes that apply to the coming Wood Snake Year:
Herbalism and plant medicine: The caduceus, a symbol featuring two intertwined snakes on a staff, is an ancient symbol of health and medicine— often still being featured in pharmacies and medical practices. The Year of the Wood Snake is going to bring a renaissance of natural medicine, including herbal supplements, teas and tinctures as well as the practices that hinge on these ancient tools, including: Ayurveda, Chinese Medicine, and European Herbalism.
Knowledge of esoterica: Throughout human history, the noble serpent has been depicted as a wisdom-keeper, often ushering in a time of rebirth and transformation for those with whom it works as a totem animal. In the Harry Potter series, Harry has the ability to speak parseltongue, the language of snakes. This, in turn, gives him access to knowledge and abilities beyond the reach of his cohorts, a key theme of the Wood Snake Year.
Talent for tactical retreat and keeping secrets: Unlike the Wood Dragon, the Wood Snake prefers smaller, strategic victories over shock-and-awe military campaigns. The Wood Snake Year will reward those that have learned the new landscape and that do not underestimate their enemies or latent dangers, taking a more circumspect approach to ground maneuvers. What battles don’t you need to fight? When is it ideal to engage in a strategic retreat? These are key questions to remember in the coming Wood Snake Year.
Again, more detailed previews about the upcoming Wood Snake Year will be hitting our Substack for paid subscribers in the months to come, but we couldn’t wait to share the key highlights and our new Wood Snake TOTEM Flower Essence with all of you!
Happy (almost) Year of the Wood Snake!
-Rachel
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