The Year of the Metal Rat!

As many of you may know, last Saturday January 25th Chinese New Year Celebrations began and the protagonist for 2020 is the Metal Rat!

Just like our western horoscopes are represented by 12 animals so too are the Chinese, and if you’re a follower you may be familiar with some of their traits and alliances! Although rats may not be some of the cutest they are resilient, innovative and intuitive creatures that have a good ability to adapt to new and ever changing environments . They are said to form good alliances with dragons and monkeys but not necessarily with goats and rabbits!

Whether you’ve been a student of astrology or just read a daily horoscope in the paper, it’s tempting to read about our respective fortunes and be guided to a degree by them. Especially if the prediction is a good one filled with luck happiness and wealth! However, what about predictions of unlucky months and what to avoid .. should we take heed of such things or dismiss them as hocus pocus! ..

Undoubtedly we’ve all read character traits that we identify with - as a Pisces and a 1972 Rat water is most definitely my element and blue is said to be one of my lucky colours, so it makes perfect sense really that Paddle board yoga is one of my favourite classes to teach ! :-) But yellow and the number 5 are said to be unlucky for me , so should I avoid them at all costs ! .. Isn’t the bright yellow smiley face of a sunflower one of the most cheery things to see .. and I love collecting CHF5- pieces just like my Dad , so the colour yellow and number 5 actually bring good luck by making me feel very happy 😊

There will maybe always be things that can’t be explained in a rational / conventional way , and our belief in the things we can’t always see has to be what brings a little magic into life . After all if we can’t visualise the future that we’d like , how can we work on bringing it to life!

But keeping a sense of the here and now is what keeps our feet on the ground and of course brings us back to life’s balance, which we always come back to in our yoga practice.

We need a sense of the constant and nothing is more effective at giving us that than the prana - life force , that is our breath . Remembering that as Yogis when we practice pranayama we work to extend our breath a little by incorporating the all important pause between our inhalation and exhalation, thus creating a slightly longer moment in time ... and if that isn’t a little bit of magic, I don’t know what is ...😉