Entering the year of the Fire Horse

Photo credit: Booker T. Sessoms 2026

Starting February 17, according to the Chinese Zodiac, we will be in the year of the Fire Horse: a rare, 60-year cycle with intense and chaotic energy, which is said to be characterised by rapid change, independence, and massive seismic shifts. Incidentally, in the same logic, we are currently ending the year of the Wood Snake: a year of steady, slow transformation, of shedding what we no longer need, a year of preparing for the whirlwind to come.

I don’t know if I am ready.

Shedding may seem peaceful, certainly the way a snake sheds its hide. Slowly gliding away from a dried up useless shell, leaving an empty imprint, a washed-out memory, a ghost self. But transformation is rarely calm, and the empty imprint this last year has felt less like a memory and more like a void. I miss New York City. I miss my child. I miss my community, my daily routine. I even miss the things that made me ultimately leave.

The truth is, I have always found it really (really) hard to let go. Not of the little things, like social media, meat, the high-heeled shoes that, pre-arthritis, were the only footwear I wore besides running shoes. Leaving all that felt easy, choices I make to return to myself like a snail. I think I could even give up coffee and cheese, if I really had to. I did it while breastfeeding and after a week it felt like that useless empty snake hide, a faint memory of something that once served some purpose but no longer held any sway.

What I really miss, of course, is connection, community, and love.

I remind myself that there is love in everything and everyone. I remind myself of the family and friends I now am closer to, the ways in which Berlin already is home. I remind myself than losing, longing, missing, are privileges reserved for those of us with time enough to care.

I sit every morning and hope for my new hide to consolidate before I, again, need to enter the fray. The year of the Fire Horse is coming, ready or not.