The Tail of the (year of the) Rat

This is from Mark Borax, “soul level astrologer”:

We’re in the tail of the Rat, finishing up the first Chinese year of the cycle of twelve. The Rat starts things; the Ox stabilizes. January 26th begins the Year of the Ox. As you can imagine, rats are very different from oxen. This last Year of the Rat has been about flushing out dark secrets, corridors of barely conscious shadow and shame that wind around inside your nature. That which the darkness conceals needs to be freed from its roothold inside us.

Rats penetrate the darkness with a keen sense of smell, unerring perception, and high intelligence. This last year may have ratted you out, may have made you a bit too keen and close-edged on your own foibles and shortcomings, your own guilty secrets. Right about now in the final weeks of the Rat, you may feel burdened with what the keen darkness-penetrating senses of the rat revealed about you.

The rat is very social; it is by sharing our burdens, by opening pockets of grief and shame, by exposing fears, that they release their impenetrable shell of calcified emotion. Rats mine shadows for treasure. You’re not being endlessly dragged through the prickly terrain of your own shortcomings for masochistic purposes, but in order to free yourself of things you’re carrying by getting to the root of them.

In the tail of the rat, we can grow to realize that, even with our blemishes and wounds, we’re still a part of the circle of humanity. All people have their broken places, houses of hurt that stand away from the sun and seek release. It’s good to remind yourself that only those people who have faced their own darkness and wrestled their inner demons out to the light, become strong on the inside. In the time leading to January 26th, the more you fulfill this shadow work, the more you’ll be ready to get down to the business of business next year.

On January 26th Rat gives way to the Ox, ushering in a much different energy. The Ox is the one animal most suited for getting things done, for finding a groove and working it and working it and working it. What larger purpose do you serve? When you get out of your own way you’ll notice that you’ve been heading down some larger track all along. It was right under your nose. Purpose unfolds when you sink down into that big Aha! place that opens when you stop running from yourself.

A groundswell of inspiration and possibility are rising out of the debris of the past. The karmic wheel of humanity is turning, and each of us has our own particular part to play. The huge, broad-shouldered, tireless Ox is best of all for plowing the old stuck field of humanity karma, and clearing away what no longer serves. A new ground is rising, you can feel it everywhere. Life is aching to become new again. Something Big is happening on planet Earth and you have some part to play in this changing of the guard.

Who are you really? What are you here to do? How much longer are you going to wait?

http://www.markborax.com/