The Year of the Snake
The Year of the Snake It's my year: the Year of the Snake in the Chinese zodiac. The cycle of twelve years goes back to my birth year and cycles even further back to 2,000 years ago. The snake years are special, representing years of transformation. The snake keeps slithering up to me or past me. The other night we went out to a Chinese restaurant and since we had already been there twice, they expressed their gratitude by giving us a calendar. The calendar has a snake curling at the top, representing its dominance over all the other symbols at the moment. In Western society the snake has such a bad rap...after all, he was the one that convinced Eve to eat from the Tree of Knowledge, which basically damned humanity until judgement day (according to Catholicism.) He is thought of as deceptive at best, evil at worst. But in China there was/is this fascination with snakes–their colorful beauty showing in shining scales and mysterious movements. It makes sense, then, that indivi...