Before we get to the year of the ox though, let's begin the year with something auspicious: the crane. Seeing a crane on New Year's Day is considered the height of good luck for the coming year. On New Year's Day in 1982, my first New Year's Day in Japan, I saw a crane fly by in Inokashira Park, on a walk with a man I'd spent the night with, and who became the man I spent the next 11 years of my life with. It was particularly meaningful, since cranes mate for life, and are considered symbols not only of good luck, but loyalty and longevity. Below is a woodblock print from Hiroshige's 100 views of Edo: cranes at at Minowa, Kanasugi.
So, it's the Year of the Ox. In both Chinese and Japanese Zen, there are a series of paintings called the Ox-Herding pictures, which are used to express the step-by-step training of the mind, the discipline of Zen that tames and harnesses the wild mind so that it becomes the energy for the vehicle to take us beyond ourselves to full Enlightenment.
Having woken up to the nature of the Ox Mind, we have to capture it, tame it and harness its energy or it will continue to work in ours lives as an unconscious element against us.
In the Chinese Zodiac, this is the year of the Earth Ox (connected to the 5 elements worldview) and means that people born in this year are successful individuals, probably because they are not only determined but highly diligent. A more modest approach combined with their reliability and sincerity makes them well liked.
One Chinese astrologer predicts that in 2009 the real estate market of United States will recover because in 5 elements theory, it's the year of earth.
So, Akemashite Omedeto Gozaimasu -- my best wishes for a New Year filled with love, light, health, prosperity and peace for all of us and all the world.
May we all wake up to the power of the Ox, tame and harness it to become one.
Gate, gate, paragate, parasamgate, Bodhi svaha. Ken yehi ratzon.
