A new year is a time of beginnings and possibility. A fresh and hopeful creativity infuses our aspirations. This is a good time to make conscious choices about the sources we turn to and the images we hold, as we form our goals, predictions, and hopes for the coming year.
According to the ancient Chinese zodiac, each year in a 60-year cycle has a particular character, set of opportunities, and challenges. 2023 is the year of the Rabbit.
What is the quality of the year of the Rabbit, and how can this inspire us in 2023?
Transcript of 2023 The Year of the Rabbit
Hello, and welcome to Myth Matters, storytelling and conversation about the power of myth and what the old stories offer us today. I’m your host and personal mythologist Dr. Catherine Svehla. Wherever you may be in this wide, beautiful, crazy world, you are part of this story circle.
Here we are, in 2023. I’m so happy to meet you in this space again and to launch a new season of Myth Matters in this season of beginnings and renewed possibilities. A new year is a time of resolutions and predictions. A fresh and hopeful creativity infuses our aspirations.
Every culture celebrates a new year and recognizes this moment in an annual cycle although the start date may not be January 1st.
For example, we are currently in the multi-day celebration of the Chinese New Year. The beginning of the Chinese year fluctuates year to year because it is connected to the lunar cycle. This year it began on January 22nd. The celebration ends on February 1st.
I appreciate having more than one day to get settled into the prospect of another year ahead. Maybe you do too. Living the archetypal pattern of renewal, the cycle of birth, growth, maturation, and death, or in other words, the process of seeding, building, realizing, and releasing, is profound. This is our life dance. The explication of this cycle is the purpose of our mythologies. Exploring and understanding it is the mythic dimension of life.
Now, a minute ago I mentioned resolutions and predictions. Look at the cultural space you occupy, the news and other content, and consider what you and your friends are talking and thinking about now. You find two primary preoccupations that are part of the new year: what am I going to do this year, what will I try to accomplish? And what’s coming? What is the character of the days ahead?
According to the Chinese zodiac, 2023 is the year of the Rabbit. I’ve been thinking about the rabbit and our propensity to create systems to look into the future. I want to talk about divination and the Chinese rabbit in particular, today.
Cultural evidence suggests that humans have always had a desire to know the future. There’s a very practical aspect to this of course. If you have some sense of what might happen, you know how to prepare. We’ve created many tools and practices aimed at understanding the forces at play in life and predicting the future.
What divination methods or tools do you use regularly? You may not think of them in this way. The word “divination” has a mystical connotation in these times, and. like the word “mythic,” that obscures the threads of connection between past and present.
For example, you probably refer to the weather forecast. Maybe you follow stock market predictions or the polls during elections. Or read commentary by influencers and experts regarding trends and their implications. Information like this is available to us on a vast array of topics, from fashion to sport to the future of artificial intelligence. The science of climate change is yet another example.
It’s likely that we are as obsessed today as people have ever been, with the need to understand the future and position ourselves properly.
Divination methods are also used to understand one’s character and purpose. These divination systems combine close observation of outer circumstances with observation of human relationships and psychology. We still use many of these tools today, astrology, being one example. You may not use astrology but I find it extremely useful, as did C.G. Jung and Joseph Campbell. There is a precise science behind astrology and other tools that reveal patterns between the inner and outer worlds.
What links these various tools– from the weather and stock reports to astrology– is close observation of the cycles and patterns in the selected phenomena, and ideas about how to best harmonize with them. Some older systems, or the societies who developed them, are labeled “primitive” today and yet they are based in observation of patterns and a depth of knowledge that should invite our curiosity.
In many instances, according to the myths, divination tools, like other important technologies–fire and corn, for example—were gifts from the gods. The Oracle of Delphi was ruled by the primal Typhon and later acquired by the god Apollo. The West African Ifa was given to the people by the trickster god Eshu, who forced a collaboration among the gods to share their wisdom with human beings.
Tools that allowed us to see into the mind of the gods or the workings of the cosmos are among the many innovations that make us human.
Now, what about that rabbit? Chinese astrology or the Chinese zodiac is based on 12 animals and 5 elements: water, earth, fire, metal, and wood, to produce a 60 year cycle. 2023 is the year of the water rabbit, specifically. Every year in the cycle has a particular character and offers certain opportunities and challenges. These show up in the collective, in society, and influence us personally as well, in the same manner as Western and Vedic astrology.
As is often the case in mythology, there are several stories as to how the twelve animals of the Chinese zodiac were chosen. The most popular one involves the Jade Emperor. The Jade Emperor, known as the Heavenly Grandfather, is one of 3 gods who represent the 3 faces or original emanations of the Tao.
In brief, the Tao is a religious philosophy based in the understanding that the true nature of the cosmos, of life, of everything, is the dynamic interplay between two seemingly opposite forces that are also, paradoxically, one. These two forces, yang and yin, exist together and cannot be separated, and yet the perpetual interplay of the different qualities that comprise each of them give rise to all of the complexity and diversity manifest in the world.
The Taoist philosophy of change is based on two underlying laws of physical change. One, polar reversal, the understanding that each thing carries the seed of its opposite. You can think of a newborn baby. When a baby is born, it carries the genetic code for its death.
The second law is periodicity, cycles and rhythms, the dynamism of opposing forces or dualities. Both of these laws are expressed in the black and white yin/yang symbol, which you probably recognize. Here are a few of the dualities that are expressed in the concepts of yin and yang: yin is negative, female, night and the moon, softness, winter. And yang is positive, male, day and the sun, hardness, summer. You get the idea.
The Jade Emperor is the power of kindness, compassion, and benevolent rulership. Some say that he created human beings, and it is generally agreed that he made the earth safe for us back in the very early days, by fighting demons of evil and alleviating hardship. When Chinese Buddhism developed, the Jade Emperor was identified with Śakra, who is similar to the Hindu god Indra.
According to the story of the zodiac, it’s said that although the Jade Emperor ruled Heaven and Earth justly and wisely for many years, which translates into many eons, he never had the time to actually visit the Earth personally and he was curious about the animals down here. He asked all the animals to visit him in heaven.
Parenthetically, for all fellow cat lovers out there, the cat is not included in the zodiac because he was tricked by rat. Cat asked his friend Rat to wake him up on the day they were supposed to go to heaven so he wouldn’t oversleep. But Cat is of course, a very handsome animal and Rat was afraid the emperor would find him ugly in comparison. So, he didn’t wake the cat and Cat slept through the meeting with the Jade Emperor. Pig was there instead. This is why cats and rats are enemies today.
The Jade Emperor was so delighted with the animals that he decided to divide the years up among them. The order of the years was to be determined by a race. The first year would be given to the first animal to complete the race and so on.
Rat is year 1 because he hitched a ride on the horns of the Ox, jumped off at the last minute, and scampered across the finish line.
Rabbit came in fourth. He almost didn’t make it. The last section of the race involved crossing a river and this posed a challenge to him. Rabbits are not good swimmers. But he saw a floating log, hopped on, and used it as a raft. Apparently, Dragon would have been number four but he saw this little rabbit on a log and paused to give the log raft a little push. So, Dragon is number five. The dragon is often seen as a malevolent creature in European mythologies but the Chinese associate the dragon with helpfulness and good fortune.
What are the qualities of Rabbit, and so our year 2023? Returning to the concepts of yin and yang for a moment, Rabbit is yin, partaking of the softer, more receptive qualities in the world and with the moon. One of the best-known stories about Rabbit in the Buddhist and Taoist tradition explains this moon connection and also gives us some insight into what Rabbit symbolizes.
One night, the Monkey, the Otter, the Jackal and the Rabbit got together under the full moon. The Monkey told his companions that the Jade Emperor had promised a great reward to the kindest animal, and they decided to practice this virtue. They needed someone to help, the Jackal pointed out, and the four of them set off through the forest together in search of someone in need. They found an old man sitting alone in front of his cave, warming his hands on a small fire. He had no food and was very hungry.
The Monkey immediately leapt into a nearby tree and began to gather nuts to give the old man. Seeing this, the otter hurried off to the river to catch some fish for the man. Jackal sniffed around and found a lizard and a pot with some, let’s say marginally fresh, milk curd.
The first three animals presented their gifts to the old man, who was extremely grateful. But the Rabbit was in a quandary. What food could he collect and give the old man? Rabbits eat grass and humans, even very hungry ones, don’t. “I have nothing to give,” he thought sadly.
Rabbit wanted to join the other animals in their generosity and kindness. He thought and a solution appeared. ” I have an excellent gift,” he thought, “as some humans like to cook and eat rabbits.” He jumped into the fire.
Well, the old man was not a beggar. He was the Jade Emperor who had come down to Earth in disguise. He made sure the flames didn’t even singe Rabbit’s fur and he declared Rabbit the winner of the competition. “The other animals gave worthy gifts,” he said, “but yours was the greatest of all.”
He rewarded Rabbit by giving him the honor of a beautiful palace in the sky and a special job to do. Rabbit lives on the moon as the companion of the moon goddess Chang-e. There he makes medicines and the elixir of life with his mortar and pestle.
At the next full moon, look and you’ll see Rabbit.
This story also reveals the character of Rabbit. Rabbit is associated with fertility, prosperity, and longevity. The physical fertility of rabbits is obvious. The story reveals other dimensions of fertility in its relationship to these other qualities, the tremendous power of empathy, generosity and kindness in service to life and as gifts of the spirit.
Thinking back to the earlier story and the help of the dragon, well, it’s important to receive these gifts as well as give them, don’t you think? I know I could often use a little push from a helpful dragon.
Rabbits are often perceived as timid and fearful and vulnerable. This is the perspective of mainstream American culture. Here is another perspective that reframes the rabbit’s behavior. The rabbit is the one who jumps into the fire. Let me share a bit more along these lines.
Rabbit is also smart. Smart, cautious, deliberate. Rabbit takes stock, looks before she leaps. Rabbit is prudent, with a finely tuned assessment of danger. And being a poor swimmer, Rabbit rode the raft.
In pre-Christian Europe, the rabbit was a clever animal familiar of the goddess. When the goddess became an evil witch, rabbits became greedy, lustful opportunists that cannot to be trusted. Their cleverness and ingenuity survived that transition but it was recast, right?
Among some African peoples and native Indian tribes on this continent, Rabbit is the trickster, a culture hero and benefactor of humans. Endlessly creative, and also possessing that mixture of good and bad, wisdom and foolishness, that is strikingly similar to our nature, right? Tricksters remind us that we can’t be too pure, or maybe I should say, we shouldn’t be seduced by the notion that this is something we can attain.
One other thing about rabbits, trickster or not, rabbits often succeed because they are underestimated. The rabbit is not aggressive. And that’s not the only way to win or prosper. A useful piece of advice for these times.
I have a poem for you before we part ways. First, a big welcome to new subscribers: James, Karen, William, Anil, Monica, Karen, Jan-Christine, and Alan. Welcome to Myth Matters! If you’re new to Myth Matters, I invite you to head over to the Mythic Mojo website. You can get on the email list, find a transcript of this episode, and also check out my other offerings.
I also want to offer a huge thank you for being there, for being with me in this new year, to the patrons and supporters of Myth Matters. I have some new things in store for you, my friends. If you are finding something of value here, I hope that’ll consider joining me on Patreon too. The link to my Patreon program is on the mythic mojo website.
Each of us makes choices about the sources we turn to and the images we hold, in forming our predictions and hopes for the future. Predictions and hopes that shape our actions. We will craft the story of 2023 together my friend, taking action and making the meaning. We don’t need to believe in anything fantastical to appreciate the gift of a softer and more compassionate energy in the coming year, and the relief and healing that could bring if we decide to align ourselves with this vision.
If we have a better understanding of our need for myth, and all that our old stories offer, we can live more satisfying lives. We can inhabit a better story and create a more beautiful, just and sustainable world. Let’s try that together in the coming year.
And that’s it for me, Catherine Svehla and Myth Matters. Thank you so much for listening. Take good care of yourself and until next time, keep the mystery in your life alive.
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