Many Thanks Year of Snake: letting go to make room for growth.

At the End of Lunar Year of the Snake, We Celebrate Our Shedding and Give Thanks for What We Have Outgrown. We let go out old skin and begin again. (original illustration by Regi)

MAny thaNks Year of SNake

Part One: The Shedding

My cousin recently said to me, “at the end of a year of the snake, you do a huge shedding.”

I haven’t stopped thinking about this since she said it.

These past years have ushered a quiet but profound change since covid, followed by coups, followed by crippling capitalism, followed by the falling out of foundational baselines.

What once fit, no longer does, and as this Year of the Snake comes to close, I’ve been listening for what needs to be shed. 

What have we outgrown?

What can we gracefully let go of in order to grow bigger?

What gratitudes do we express as we release what no longer fits?

For me, this past year, I had to let go of the stories I was telling myself. Releasing my concepts of what I thought was written in stone, and accept the malleable, fluid, and changing.  Along with this was outgrowing and letting go of old identities, all of which were, of course, based on the stories I was telling myself. 

However, it’s only through the quietude of covid lockdowns and the turning inward of the past five years, that I could even start listening to the stories I was telling myself. 

I had to let go of the old stories that I was telling myself and the old identities I was clinging to, but first I needed to hear those stories I had been telling myself and decide if they were true or not.

As old stories, concepts, beliefs, have loosened and fallen away like an outgrown skin, I dedicated myself to study and practice and grew so that I could fill this new skin I find myself in at the end of year of snake. 

For me, that is a rebrand of sorts, now that I’m a published author and passed my National Board Exam in Health and Wellness coaching last summer in the US.  For me, that is letting go of my perfectionism and “not good enough” stories; to release judgement of what is acceptable in this yoga industrial complex and to integrate all of the knowledge I’ve been accumulating in this lifetime.  

As that old skin is shed, what remains is more integrated, more embodied. I think it might even sparkle, this new skin I'm in.

So, many thanks Year of Snake. I am grateful everything I have outgrown this year as I let go my old skin & begin again.   And here, as we celebrate this huge shedding of our old skins and stories, we emerge ready for whatever comes our way next. 

MAny thaNks Year of SNake

Loving the skin we're in reflects a high level of wellness.L

Part Two, The Awakening

I’ve been fascinated by this catalyst, the corona virus, revealing what had gone unnoticed for so long and unseen became visible.   The Corona is the part of the sun that can only be seen during an eclipse,  it’s always there, around the sun, but invisible until the sun is shaded or shadowed.

I love this living language. We can only see what is right in front of us, all the time, when it is shadowed. I love these little linguistic cross overs, proof for us that language and Archetypes are alive and living in this realm. For as we have seen, many previously invisible forces have been exposed as we sat with the shadows of our corona.

The snake as a symbol or metaphor exists in many folklore, mythologies, and systems. In the yogic tradition, there's metaphoric language and visuals around a pair of snakes, intertwined, asleep at the base of the spine.

The snake represents the kundalini energy that runs through the Sushumna Nadi, or Central Channel of the body. Kundalini is a force of cosmic energy that, when awakened, runs up from the root that connects us to Earth, through the crown, to the heavens.  

You've see this image in the Caduceus or the Rod of Asclepius, iconic symbols of snakes wrapped around a staff, show this rising snake energy that rises up the energetic center of the body.

These past few years, as unseen truths have been revealed, returning to the basics of the central channel, the simplicity of breath, to self regulate and integrate all of the things happening in real time, never mind the inherited ancestral, inherited, conditioned baggage.  

Our somatic response to simply regulate by returning to the basics of the central channel is also preparing us to run the full energy of what comes next.

What come next, once those sleepy snakes are fully awake and rise up and align to the heart at the center of it all?

From what I can tell, these past years have woken people up, and that little snake baby is on the rise in a lot of folks.

Is it a collective rebirth, as we shed this last skin and sparkle?

What is it for you, at the end of this Year of Snake, that you are shedding?  

If you are inspired to journal on this topic for yourself,

here’s some contemplations I pondered:

What do I release? 

What have I integrated?

What feels true now?

What venom can be transformed into medicine?

What am I shedding? 

What new skin have I grown into?

If you would like to know more about the Central Channel Kundalini connection, you can purchase my book, Chakra Centers here.

If you would like to share what you’ve let go of, any journaling or drawing prompted above, connect with me through social media at @inthebright or send me a message here.

MAny thaNks Year of SNake

in kindness, Regi

Jan 18, 2026 (one month of shedding before lunar year of the horse races in)