The in-between: Wood Snake + Fire Horse
My Chani App horoscope once reframed the “messy middle” to the “cozy in-between” and I’ve loved it ever since, especially because I wouldn’t describe this abbreviated season we’re in as a messy middle. It very much is a cozy in-between.
It’s a slow reemergence from the cocoon that I so lovingly entered at the end of last year, while dealing with kidney stones, declining invites and rescheduling work obligations, and welcoming with open arms this opportunity to slow down and winter.
Today, we’re 17 days into a new calendar year: 2026, exactly one month away from Lunar New Year (February 17), which will mark an end to the Year of the Wood Snake and usher in the bold energy of the Fire Horse, and about two months away from the Spring Equinox (March 20), also known to be the energetic new year.
We’re in-between: We’ve passed the change of the calendar year, but not the change of the energetic year.
Not yet.
We’re still presently in the year of the Wood Snake, winding down our collective season of shedding, unlearning, release and surrender, and preparing to move into the year of the Fire Horse with momentum, passion, and bold energy to go after (and do) the things we’ve been contemplating without looking back.
Personally, I do feel the anticipation of that Fire Horse energy and the best metaphor that I can think of is that I’m lining up at the starting line of a race. I’ve emerged from my cocoon, took my time, got out of bed and stretched, and now lining up to the starting line. I’m hydrated, I’m awake, I’m taking care of myself and I’m lining up to get ready to GO, but I’m not going just yet.
The race hasn’t started, the gun hasn’t fired, but I’m beginning to feel that energy shift - anticipating, eagerly awaiting.
You can look at it as a limbo, which can be confusing, have a negative connotation, and can feel unsupportive, or you can look at this reframe as we’re really just in preparation. Leaning into what sustains us and trusting the universe, our intuition, our environments, our communities… but really, trusting ourselves to know when it’s time to go.
Intuitively, I know it’s not quite go time yet. As someone who absorbs a lot of energy, I’ve really resisted absorbing the urgency that I’ve sensed around me. Collectively, we’re in an abbreviated season of preparation and that preparation looks different than what our society typically ascribes to January and the start of a new calendar year: new year’s resolutions, “new year new me”, dry January, 75 hard, and all these “challenges” - habits we’re trying to create at the every start of the year, which if you look at nature’s energy and natural rhythms and cycles, this is still very much a time for hibernation, cocooning, and surviving off of our reserves.
John and I went to the arboretum last weekend for a forest bathing workshop and you can clearly see it - the bees aren’t buzzing, the flowers aren’t in bloom, things are alive, but it’s like they’re asleep. There will of course come the season when they’re “alive” and re-energized again, but things are more reserved right now and we can take a note from nature to weather this cozy in-between season.