01/05/2026
I won’t sugarcoat it.
2025 was hard for me in ways that asked more than I expected and lingered longer than I wanted. There were moments of grief, moments of unraveling, and moments where letting go felt less like release and more like standing in the unknown. And yet, beneath all of it, something steady and purposeful was happening. I was shedding. Not because I was ready, but because my body knew it was time.
The Year of the Wood Snake works in this way. It does not rush transformation or demand clarity before the body has found its footing. It teaches patience through sensation and wisdom through discomfort. It invites us to loosen what no longer fits and to trust that what is falling away has already served its purpose. Much of that work happens below the surface, in the nervous system, in the breath, and in the long pauses where we learn to listen rather than push.
When I learned that 2026 would arrive as the Year of the Fire Horse, something inside me shifted. A spark stirred where there had been quiet endurance. I felt the desire to take that old snake skin and set it ablaze, not from anger or resistance, but from reverence. To honor what was shed and to move forward without carrying it as a weight.
The Fire Horse is a powerful and honest energy shift. It represents movement, courage, vitality, and forward momentum, but not without awareness. Fire brings illumination as much as it brings heat, and the Horse carries that fire with instinct and sensitivity. Not as reckless energy, but the kind of strength that knows when to pause and when to run, when to gather itself and when to move with confidence across the open ground.
Where the Snake moved inward, the Horse carries us outward. A horse does not respond to force or urgency; it responds to presence, coherence, and trust. When it feels met, it moves freely and powerfully, and when it does not, it resists. The noble Fire Horse asks us to embody our truth, to move from alignment rather than obligation, and to let our actions arise from what we have already integrated.
This is the same language the body speaks.
In bodywork, we learn that healing does not come from pushing through resistance, but from creating enough safety for movement to return on its own. When the nervous system feels supported, the tissues soften, our breath deepens, and choice returns. We realize that freedom is not the absence of fear, but the ability to move with awareness rather than urgency.
So as I shed the final skin of 2025, I do not step into the new year cautiously or guarded. I step forward carrying what I have learned, with steadiness in my chest and fire in my stride. The Snake taught me how to soften, how to listen, and how to trust the quiet work of healing. The Fire Horse now invites me to move and to carry that wisdom into motion.
This year is about letting what is already alight guide the way forward. I am not dragging the past behind me, but riding into 2026 fully embodied, on a fire horse blazing.
*A special thank you to my favorite Horse Goddess and friend, Jenny, for sharing such beautiful thoughts and wisdom that helped me shape this piece. 🥰
