01/27/2026
If 2025, the year of the Yin Wood Snake 🐍 was a quieter, slower, and more introspective year of shadow work, inner alchemy, and metamorphosis, then 2026, Year of the Fire Horse will usher in the energy needed to charge forward toward our destiny in this new form, albeit mindfully at a steady pace. Only after shedding the extra layers and baggage of who we once were can we become who we truly need to be. Hopefully, you have spent this time healing and releasing old patterns, thoughts, behaviors, or even people who might be stifling your spiritual growth. This is essential work in order to move forward with the grace, speed, and strength of the Horse. 🐎
That said, during a Fire year, sprinting right out the gate in wintertime is ill advised. Conserving your energy while steadily moving forward is the best way to avoid burnout and adrenal fatigue. For now, we remain in the depths of wintertime when most creatures in the Northern climates are still hibernating and storing their energy. Savor this period of deep rest to better prepare yourself for the fast-paced energy of the Fire Horse year, which begins with the rising of the New Moon on Sunday, February 17th. 🌑
The Fire element, much like the Sun, is most abundant in the summertime when the days are long and the climate is warm. This is the ideal time of year to be active, social, and adventurous. For this reason, Summer 🌞 is a common time for vacations and festivals where people gather and celebrate with one another. The emotion of the Fire element is joy and laughter, but too much Fire can trigger anxiety, insomnia, hot flashes, or heart palpitations. If you're prone to this kind of overheating or overstimulation, the Water element can bring you back into balance throughout the year. Cooling, calming, hydrating foods and teas are an excellent way to quench the fire and replenish your adrenals--your body's deepest reserves of energy--so that you have the stamina to continue on.
🔥 Fire is also the element of transformation. It has the potential to alter the chemistry of all the other elements. This can either bring nourishment and sustenance or destruction if the fire runs wild and is not tended to properly, potentially burning anything it touches to the ground. In general, Yang years tend to be more volatile and unpredictable, much like fire, so it is important to tend to yours with intention and care. Fire is a powerful force to wield.
Combine all this with the energy of the Horse, strong and agile, but also highly social, intelligent, playful, and curious--a combination that could very well inspire a year of rapid progress, innovation, opportunity, and expansion on a global level, especially in the fields of AI, technology, and renewable energy. Given the creativity of the Fire element, it could also be a time of artistic renaissance, bold self-expression and protest, or even cultural revolution as we saw in the last Fire Horse year, which occurred in 1966. This was a time of major social and political change, non-violent civil disobedience, grassroots activism, and evolving technology like the world had never seen before. 🌎
1966 was the height of the Civil Rights movement here in the United States. It was the year that the Black Panther Party was founded in Oakland, CA, Martin Luther King led the Chicago Freedom Movement, and the term "Black Power" was coined at the March Against Fear in Mississippi. Anti-Vietnam War protests were escalating and the National Organization of Women (NOW) was founded, inspired by Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique, the signature work of second-wave feminism. ♀️
On a global level, Guyana, Botswana, and Lesotho all gained independence from Great Britain. And in China, it was the start of the Cultural Revolution, a decade-long period of political and social chaos with millions of casualties, led by future Chairman Mao. In the realm of technology, 1966 was the year that the automated teller machine (ATM) was released, fiber optic communication was proposed, and the first-ever "Brown Box" home video games were released for television sets. 📺
If history has a way of repeating itself, 2026 will undoubtedly be a year to remember. Tend to your fire, reignite your own creativity, passion, and joy--the forces that will sustain the flame and keep you inspired, charging forward--even as the future is uncertain and unsettling. Reconnect with your communities, support one another, and remember that there is power in the herd.
🐎🐎🐎
