Year of the Dragon 2024–February 10, 2024, through Jan. 28, 2025
Happy Lunar New Year, everyone! Good luck from dragon fire breathed into your lives with excitement and creativity!
2024 is the Year of the Wood Dragon. It is particularly a favorable time for change, growth, and progress. The combination of the dragon’s dynamic energy and the grounding and stabilizing influence of the wood element will inspire imagination, leadership, and the creation of new ideas. In general, the dragon is a harbinger of great fortune, yet unpredictable, regardless of what type of Dragon year we are in. Its mystery is never completely known. People cannot see its head and tail at the same time.
The dragon is also the most powerful, revered symbol in ancient Chinese mythology and the only one of the twelve zodiac signs based on an imaginary animal. A system of twelve animals not unlike the western zodiac with symbols for each of the twelve months, the Chinese zodiac is organized by the order in which animals (including the mythic dragon) were converted by the Buddha. The first was the rat (not ugly and inauspicious as in European mythology) and the dragon is the fifth among the twelve. It is the preeminent symbol of majesty, power, intelligence and wisdom. (Only the Chinese emperor, Son of Heaven, could wear the robe with the dragon’s five talons. Sumptuary laws prohibited anyone else from wearing this image.)
This year is believed to be the luckiest of the twelve in the zodiac, and will be full of positive surprises, especially for new businesses, marriage and children. (The last dragon year was the Black Water Dragon year, 2012. See my January 2, 2012 analysis). Therefore, 2024 will be a year of head-spinning unpredictability, uncertainty, transition, change and energy. 2024 will also contrast sharply with last year, the Year of the Rabbit, when we felt more hesitant, introspective and precarious about our place in the world.
So be prepared for much success, intelligence and truth-telling for this is the year of wood dragons dreaming of changing the world. While conflict and uncertainty in politics, foreign relations, and the environment will continue, there will be the emphasis on the need for forgiveness and peaceful resolutions.
Everything this year, good or bad, will seem bigger than life and larger in magnitude leading to a frenzy of change for the world, like the epic size and magical powers of the mythical beast itself! We all have lots of surprises in this Year of the Dragon– Happy New Year!
Note: Those born under the Dragon sign (2024, 2012, 2000, 1988, 1976, 1964, 1952, 1940) will experience surprising rebirth and growth in all aspects of their lives.