Between Shedding and Fire

There is something about the final days of a cycle that feels both quiet and electric.

The Year of the Snake carries an energy of shedding. Not loud transformation. Not spectacle. But the kind that happens close to the skin. The kind that requires stillness before movement.

Shedding isn’t dramatic. It’s deliberate. It asks us to loosen what has outlived its usefulness, habits, expectations, even identities, and to leave them behind without ceremony.

As we move toward the Fire Horse year, the energy shifts. Fire doesn’t wait. It ignites. The Horse doesn’t circle; it runs. If the Snake teaches us how to release, the Fire Horse asks us what we are willing to set in motion.

That tension, between restraint and ignition, is something I’ve come to recognize in my own writing.

The Harbinger is rooted in the Spring Equinox. It lives in that moment where light and dark hold equal space. Where awakening happens slowly, cautiously. Where intuition stirs before it declares itself.

But the next installment in the series moves toward Summer Solstice timing. Toward fullness. Toward heat. Toward revelation that no longer whispers.

There is a reason stories unfold in seasons. Spring asks us to notice. Summer asks us to act.

The Snake year, for me, has been about quiet refinement. Listening. Editing. Letting the noise fall away. Allowing the story, and myself, to shed what was essential.

The Fire Horse feels different. It feels like forward motion. Like courage. Like choosing momentum instead of waiting for permission.

Cycles like this aren’t about belief systems or predictions. They’re mirrors. They offer language for what we’re already feeling.

And right now, what I feel is this: The shedding is nearly complete. The running begins soon. As the calendar turns, I find myself grateful for the quiet work of the past year, and curious about what fire will illuminate next.

Stories, like seasons, know when it is time to bloom and when it is time to burn bright. And we are allowed to honor both.