Yin Wood Snake Year 2025
"It's Never Too Late to Shut the Fuck Up."
The TLDR Behavioral Keywords for the Qi of this year:
Patient, Concealed, Observant, Flexible, Cynical, Conserving, Chthonic
Table of Contents
A Note on The View
From Dragon to Snake in the Hexagrams
Decolonial Interpretations
My Summary: Building Effective Underground Networks
Seeing the Big (Nondual) Picture
Exercises & Practice Ideas
Housekeeping
1. A Note on The View
It has taken me a long time, perhaps even lifetimes I can’t recall, to be able to sit here in the weird field called “astrology & divination” without succumbing to the internal and external propaganda of power, that ever-present narcotic temptation.
Part of my own sanity-crafting process is to listen to how others interpret the same material, and to keep reading, practicing and playing with my present-moment embodied experience without coming to absolute conclusions.
Everything is a story
and stories by their very nature are deceptive
they transform like clouds in the sky
this doesn’t make them unreliable.
If anything, we behave like crazy people
when we get mad at clouds doing cloud things.
Astrology in my estimation is a kind of mirror, a reflective dynamic that we can use to enter the unseen.
By this I do not necessarily mean “go into deep trance”, but that option is a possibility for sure. What I really mean is that everything is a story and stories are like doors. Doors have thresholds and “other sides”. Doors demarcate a vibe shift, a transitory place, a bardo, a gap between a “here” and a “there” that becomes the new, current here.
I am describing the phenomena of dreaming, of perceiving and of imagining, all together.
A kind of soft chaos in which the sky and the ground switch places. Where your past and future reveal themselves as clowns and fools, dressing up in costumes off stage of your immediate cognition.
This is the state of mind that we were always in as babies and small children, that we learned to control or shut away in order to survive a materialist paradigm of social threats and inequality. The domination of the so-called masculine energies of yang that lust for agency in the form of control, while also suffering from that same lust. The snake eats its tail.
The snake eats its tale.
All things come to their natural end, a transformation into “the other”.
We can try to control this, or we can learn to play jazz, by which I mean listen-feel as an action-state-of-potential.
The same “mechanism” or stance/approach/posture of a great jazz musician is the same as nature listening to itself via the myriad forms and bodies of every other creature that appears as a part of nature.
As the wood dragon embodied the force of wind and thunder, the wood snake comes down to earth to lay belly flat on the chthonic ground. As dragon transforms into horse, it first becomes snake.
The wind of wood and the flight of dragons shapeshifts down to earth. The wood snake is like a warm wind low to the ground. Preparing itself to eventually gallop forward in a burst of fiery musculature. Before it gets there though, it spends a year as a “baby” snake, a soft, green, flexible serpent sliding across the YIN earth.
Its body a soft fire, for snake’s native element is fire, indicative of the snake moon in May and the hours of 9am-11am. These times are the pre-summer and the pre-noon heat. Snake is that hint of kindling passion, of inspiration turning into passion.
Both inspiration (wood) and passion (fire) are intangible, ephemeral forces that whisper us into the energy of earth, the solidifying, synthesizing and making manifest of those inspirational and passionate drives. The drive towards maturity that many of us never actualize.
But that’s where all of this is going, it’s not where we are. But we’ll get to all that.
My interpretation of Chinese lunar astrology is animistic and imaginal, playful, improvisational, like jazz. I use the stories handed down to us as doorways into relational ambiguity and intimate contact with “the other”. In this case, yin wood snake as the maiden-mother of 2025.
What does she have to say, as she slides across the heavy ground?
2. From wood dragon to wood snake in the Zhouyi
Tidal hexagrams and Shao Song’s hexagram correspondences.
dragon tidal hexagram is 43: lurch
wood dragon hexagram is 60: juncture
snake tidal hexagram is 1: heaven
wood snake hexagram is 7: army
My take on these correspondences is that the 12 and 60 “archetypal” forces have a qi pattern of behaviors that relate to what that qi character quality is about in the world - what it is trying to do/learn/resolve. Therefore, dragons in general are “lurching” (hex 43), they jumpstart the yang qi after dawn, the hours of 7am-9am. Think about how that time of day feels. It changes from rabbit qi (5am-7am) (hex 34 great strength) to dragon qi. Rabbit builds up a great jump, pressing/burrowing down and back, and the dragon lurches — flies forward and up.
Then, dragon qi shifts to snake qi (9am-11am) which indicates hexagram 1 - qian, heaven, the supreme yang of potential and energy, right before it peaks, crests and begins its decline during horse qi (11am-1pm). Horse tidal hexagram is 44 meeting.
Snake is like rabbit in the sense it has a crouching back & down movement quality, and Horse, like dragon, Runs forward & up.
So, we go from rabbit great-strengthening to dragon lurching to snake “heavening”, to horse meeting in the morning hours of the day. Think-feel into this pattern that you have experienced your whole life, every day, even as the flavor slightly changes every season and decade.
In 2024 I wrote this about yang wood dragon:
Think back to what has happened last year: a forever genocide, multiple genocides, a return (they never left, they resist becoming obsolete) of trumpian fascist patriarchal man-babies — ghosts, whipped and chained to their own ancestral addictions — and the beginning of the end of empire. The death throes of previous causes who do not want to pass the torch. The aftershocks of entire ages of delusion meeting their elderly, decrepit ends. A botched funerary ritual that fractally reflects centuries upon centuries of misconduct. Learning-the-hard-way-and-dragging-everyone-down-with-you energy.
Snake continues or begins, depending on your perspective, the fiery nature of collapse and extreme change. The hot energy that comes from decomposition. It is “heaven”, pure yang destabilizing the cold, stagnant yin of how things have been. It is right after the new dawn (wood dragon), and it’s getting hotter. A newborn flame.
This newborn flame will erupt into a galloping furnace in 2026, year of the yang fire horse.
But for now, the flame is dreaming.
Dreaming of what it can be, might be, will be as it snakes its way through earth (yin) and all the forms of nature. Everything that was once solid that began its dissolution/decline/death in the water years of 2022 and 2023, continue the (violent/painful/birth labor) metamorphosis of wood in 2024 and 2025 - bursting through as new shoots and inspirations of what could be, if it survives the journey.
Wood snake is heaven’s child, but heaven is not yet fully active or manifest. It is dreaming, in a cocoon-like state, but mobile, flexible, moving silently through the woods and fields, hiding in plain sight, low to the ground. The child that begins to touch everything, because it is no longer in the womb.
Heaven’s child, newborn flame, cannot be tamed and has no name…
Thunder roared; lightning starts a fire.
The LA fires are but small preamble of the things to come after this year. Our misconduct reflecting in the mirror called Nature.
The wisdom of the snake is that life and death, heaven and earth are connected, a circle. The snake eating its tail/tale. By flying low/on the ground, the snake is in a constant dreaming state. Darkness & Light merging into some indescribable other that is both and neither. The primordial chaos just beyond our cognitive capacities. The snake is the true mystic, dancing beyond the binaries of moral constructs. An asocial creature.
3. What might this mean in a Decolonial Sense?
Last year, I complicated traditional meanings of the wood dragon qi with the subtitle: Degrowth & Decolonization. Decolonization means slightly different things to different people, so let me briefly reiterate what I mean when I say that. I mean both a collective, material (landback) and personal, neuro-psychological liberation from Wrong Stories that are based in and around addiction, narcissistic tendencies, dualism, theism, materialism, and domination of nature. All of these “big words” are reframed in my work through this overarching lens of “Right Story/Wrong Story” and how stories influence and shape our states, and thus our behaviors.
Stories → States → Behaviors.
The personal IS the political.
Wood Snake corresponds to hexagram 7: army.
In this hexagram, there is a progression from line 1 to line 6 of an army (large group of warriors) marching forward on their way to victory, which culminates in the annexation and integration of opposing forces.
The first line is about synchronizing together with the same rhythm. It is about following a chain of command.
The second line is about the close (intimate) connection of the commanders and the troops. This allows for quick feedback of information.
The third line is that the cost of success is always death. Sometimes extraordinary means may have to be taken to ensure liberation.
The fourth line is about the wisdom of compromise (surrender, retreat, treaty making) in the long path towards victory.
The fifth line is about thoroughness and maturity (experience). Fairly redistributing resources and completely integrating the defeated army into the new order as the real goal.
The sixth line is about the (new) skills required to maintain lasting peace. It speaks to the need for wise counsel, help from others, and sufficient learning.
Hexagram 7 consists of the trigram of Earth over the trigram of Water. The commentary compares the water under the Earth (underworld, water, death, chthonic realms, subconscious, ancestral lands) to the organization of nations and the chain of command in an army. Even revolutionary forces must one day become a government. If one only exists to overthrow existing structures, one may not have the capacity to create a better structure.
The best-case scenario is that in times of peace, the army is hidden in the nation’s ordinary people. This quality of hidden-ness is indicative of wood snake energy.
The transformation from ordinary people to an army requires Discipline, Good Leadership & Caution. It is a time for Order & Cooperation, Teamwork & Personal Discipline. Losses are inevitable.
Successful teamwork in any endeavor, but especially conflict and war, requires cooperation, self-discipline, coordination and the effective use of a strong chain-of-command.
The wood snake is Patient, Concealed, Observant, Flexible, Conserving of Energy, Low to the Ground, Cautious, Precise and Indicative of Root Systems Growing Downward Underground.
Leadership is required to communicate clearly with their assistants and subordinates.
Aggression & Force is inferior to negotiating from a position of overwhelming confidence.
When conflict is unavoidable, it is of utmost importance to remember that war is not over until all enmity is resolved. Truly great leaders merge everyone including opponents into a new orderly group.
4. My Summary: Building Effective Underground Networks
The wood snake is a year of preparing and dreaming, it is about conserving energy for what is truly important, and that requires refining your personal value system and perhaps not being swayed by information overload and compelling Wrong Stories, no matter how painful and emotionally charged they are.
The West is slowly realizing that the internet and the economy are controlled by psychopathic feudal warlords. That class solidarity is more important than perhaps any other identity marker, and that personal hygiene — your attention — is your most valuable asset.
But power and all other brands of narcotic are the devil’s bargain. Temptation in some cultural fables is often depicted as the devil in the form of a snake. While much of this depiction is misogynistic and christo-fascist in nature, it would be useful to deconstruct and reframe this narrative form for a bit.
If we take the position of the snake in this theatrical play, the snake tempts others who are weak in their resolve (integrity) because they desperately hunger/desire something. The snake can use their hunger/desire against them, because the mark is easily fooled by propaganda that caters to their specific hungers/desires.
The snake can tempt, because it cannot be tempted, because it has fully integrated what temptation is. The snake has BECOME temptation and thus can enact it.
When one can integrate seemingly opposing forces, polarities, then one can feel and understand how the “two sides” are the same. We can only know when we are comfortable because we know discomfort, and we can only know when we are uncomfortable because we know comfort. Therefore, comfort and discomfort are linked and not separate and not opposed.
So too, Hunger/Desire and what we hunger and desire for and what it feels like to have hunger/desire satiated are all connected as to be one environmental dynamic.
We all have the experience of wanting something so badly that it is intolerable to the point that we are compelled to have the thing, and we all know what it is like to have the thing and create an entirely new hunger/desire. In some way this cycle never ends and wanting and having are the same. They are the snake’s head and the snake’s tail.
When we integrate/become Power, we cannot be tempted by it.
When we integrate/become Power, we can enact it.
When we integrate/become Power, we know the downsides of it. The narcotic and addictive side effects of it.
When we integrate/become Power, we can restrain it.
What does all this have to do with building an army of ‘righteous liberatory warriors’?
Everything.
To be an effective follower (troop) and to be an effective leader (command) require similar internal skills and behaviors.
The capacity to observe how horizontal and vertical ecologies are different aspects of a common/connected Nature is key.
In other words, a Rabbit is not “weak”, and Tiger is not “strong” in an absolute sense. Rabbits are rabbits and tigers are tigers, and they function in their roles in an ecology. Rabbits are strong at being rabbits, and tigers strong at being tigers, but a tiger is weak at being a rabbit and vice versa.
When we have a mature sense of our own role in any given environment or situation, then we are what we are, and we do what we do.
And remember: It’s never too late to shut the fuck up.
5. Seeing the Big (Nondual) Picture
Snake tidal hexagram is 1: qian - heaven. We can think of this as archetypal snake qi, before it sub-divides into one of the 5 wuxing elemental phases. Snake is also the 4th moon, typically what we think of as the month of May. Dragon is April, or the 3rd moon.
April showers bring May flowers. Dragon brings Snake.
The wind, rain and thunder of spring usher forth the excessive bounty of summer. Pollination, blossoming and blooming. The heat. Snake’s native character is Yin Fire, Dragon’s is Yang Earth. Yang ushers forth Yin, and earth as a transitional element bridges the wood (wind) nature of spring into the fire nature of summer. Snake is the beginning of summer. This time period, the end of spring & the beginning of summer, is indicative of a great time of transformation in the seasonal cycle of the year.
So, too, this fractal harmonic is like the transition from a dragon year into a snake year. This year, 2025, will be like a year of Mays, and next year, 2026, a fire horse year (native element matching) will be like a year of the hottest Junes you’ve ever experienced. Because this a wood snake year and snake’s native element is yin fire, it will be less hot and cooler. Wood nourishes, births and supports (mothers) fire, and so this year and the next will have a quality of being amplified in subtle (or not-so-subtle) ways.
Dragon, Snake and Horse are all forward directed energies. With dragon flying upwards, snake crawling sideways and forward, and horse running straight ahead. The snake can be seen as the tail/tale of the dragon.
Hexagram 1: Qian - Heaven
Heaven indicates primordial yang which is time. Fast, quick, warm and moving. Sky energy, Solar energy. It is like the hours just after dawn, 9am-11am during the month of May. The gearing up (coiling up) for the largest burst of forward (hot) energy of the day.
This hexagram is the first hexagram and thus catalyzes the 64-hexagram cycle.
It represents a dragon and a yearly life cycle of draconic energy which incubates/hibernates beneath a frozen alpine lake and step-by-step flies into and beyond the sky.
This thawing & upward flight in inevitable and requires no forcing or manipulation. It happens because it is pre-destined based on precedence. Spring, and summer, naturally return.
The dragon consults & gathers force in order to learn how to appropriately direct & conserve energy. Spring’s winds (inspiration) are subtle and easily missed or destroyed via excessive aggression and desire.
The cycle of day and night provide particular qualia, Working & Retiring are partners and alternate. Progress is made during the day; Return is possible at night.
Hesitation precedes action. Lurching too early invites disaster.
Success is inevitable, though consulting with experts refines and stabilizes success.
Getting (too) high (on your own supply) is a natural possibility. Cease with sufficiency. Do not prolong the summer. Withdraw appropriately.
6. Exercises and Practice Ideas
My overall View for methods involves 3 overlapping zones, or 3 legs to make a tripod (each leg requires the other two legs to form an integrated structural-functionality).
The zones/legs are not hierarchal, that is to say, are not vertical ecologies, but horizontal ecologies that require each other in order to produce a holistic, coherent effect. The order I am listing them in is arbitrary and based on my own preference and current understanding.
All zones are a mixture of structure & Improvisational approaches. This is central to the coherence. We practice structure/forms to be able to improvise/play in the interplay between form and formlessness.
Each zone/leg is named as an action, a verb to denote what it is we are doing.
Zone/Leg 1: Meditating/Dreaming — Non-conceptual meditation & Dream praxis — “No-Story”, Deathpractices. Linked to water element.
Zone/Leg 2: Moving — Somatics, Body-based movement arts and exercise, biomechanics, structural and functional integration, functional neurology, Singing, dancing, voicework, breathwork, theater arts/acting, improvisational forms, clown, deathclown, gameplay, Roleplaying, etc. Linked to wood & fire.
Zone/Leg 3: (Art)Making — externalized (art)making forms and mediums that produce a “product” (material object/thing) that can be given away from the maker. Linked to earth & metal.
Wood-Snaking around
Patient, Concealed, Observant, Flexible, Cynical, Conserving, Chthonic
1. “Get up, Brush off, Take a Deep Breath, Move on” - a rest & reset procedure
This exercise is an explanation of how to reset, how to cross thresholds deliberately, in the present moment, non-conceptually. That means, not thinking “about” past or future constructions and predictions, which are illusory and fabricated. This is also an antidote to doom/doomerism, because doom is a false prediction based on opioidal and endorphinergic fear states.
Get Up. This means change your position. It could mean going from sitting to standing, from lying down to squatting, etc. or it can mean moving to another room, another part of the building, etc. Do the most expedient thing.
Brush Off or Wash Your Face. This means do something with the palms of your hands on your skin and face. You can literally wash your face with water, or you can use your palms to brush your skin. Doing this over your head, ears, neck, face and chest will help the vagal nerves change their state, which is ultimately what we want. Rubbing, brushing, patting, tapping, massaging, stroking, etc are all great: do what feels good and/or novel/interesting. Experiment with different kinds of touch because they all activate different kinds of nerve endings and mechano-receptors. Feel free to make as many vocal sounds as you want.
Take a Deep Breath and/or Yawn. This means to inhale via the nose (if possible, prioritize nasal breathing) as deeply as possible, to fill the lower lungs. As you do this, the entire torso and belly/pelvis/tailbone should expand 360 degrees. When you experiment with different speeds of inhalation you will discover different feelings and sensations. Slow & deep does something different than Fast & deep, both are great.
Hold the breath at the top. Feel the power of total inhalation.Option: while inhaling/exhaling, one can “slap” the chest with both hands lined up edge to edge, fingers pointing left and right, with palms down the midline of the chest between the nipples. This will engage quite a few anti-anxiety/anti-grief acu-points from the clavicle to the bottom of the sternum.
Then, exhale and ‘ride’ the exhale down and out into relaxation. It may take a few repetitions to really activate this relaxation-response. Making sounds (humming, toning, sighing, etc) on the exhale is helpful. You can exhale with an open mouth — let the jaw and tongue activate and release, relax.
Repeat 1-3 times or as much as you want.
This inhale/exhale dynamic mirrors the yang-yin waveform of reality. When you inhale the body naturally expands upward, outwards and forward (this is yang); when you exhale the body naturally contracts downward, inwards and backwards (this is yin).
When you fully yawn as a total body action, all of these directions and inclinations combine into something scientists call “Pandiculation” which is an active “stretching” that mammals do to tone their nervous system and change states deliberately.Move on. This means to move your body towards curiosity, or towards your most immediate physical needs. This might look like drinking water, using the toilet, taking a shower or bath, going for a walk, taking a nap, making some food, etc. Or it might look like daydreaming, journaling or flipping through an art book, etc. Prioritize present moment sensations and awareness. Do not go into “about” mode, which is “thinking-about”, “worrying-about”, predicting (future-casting) or referencing (past-constructing) etc.
Stay with the moment and the body-in-the-moment, while also re-directing attention to present moment felt sensations & awareness.The present moment felt sensations & awareness should have qualia like this: easeful, playful, curious, interesting, novel, comfortable, soothing, nourishing, neutral, relieving, non-binary/non-polarizing, non-conceptual, poetic, sublime, not too much, not too little, not too intense.
Remember that sensations are not just visual or auditory, they are also olfactory (smell), tactile (touch), gustatory (taste). They are also not just in the front of the body, but to the sides, above, below and behind.
It may take you many months or more to truly habituate to this very simple procedure and use it in many different kinds of situations and contexts. This is the key. I have never met anyone who was a complete master at this who didn’t need to remind themselves. Most regular lay-people who have not trained in acting, dance, somatics, gymnastics, martial arts or meditation rarely if ever practice this to the extent necessary to fully grasp the benefits.
2. Neutral Mask - learning holistic state-based movement
Learning and practicing Neutral Mask is effective after performing a round or more of the introductory exercise above. Neutral Mask comes from theatrical somatic traditions, and you can find many versions in the world. This is mine.
Begin by walking around an open space. Walk naturally according to your current level of energy and mood. Check in with what this feels like, body-scanning all of the various markers of it: what are your eyes doing, your head, your neck, your arms, what is the cadence of your walk, is there a certain sway or rhythm, how is your pelvis tilted, etc.
In this phase you are not manipulating or changing anything, you are noticing, checking and aiming to remember it. After a few minutes of noticing, give this beginning check-in a number or color, etc so you can compare back to it later.Then, begin to go through some deliberate changes. You can write a list beforehand or record an audio to act as a facilitator for you.
Go with simple, broad polarities, and then different emotions. You are still just walking around, but now for example you walk as if you are having the Best Day Ever. Notice everything again, what changed and how did it change? Do a through body scan and enjoy the experience. After a bit, walk as if it’s your Worst Day Ever. Again, scan your body and notice changes. Oscillate between best and worst and then go back to “normal”. Is normal now the same as normal in the beginning of the exercise? If not, see what and how things have changed.
Rotate randomly between Best, Worst and Normal for a while until they all feel familiar.Option: You may continue this exercise using differing emotions, continually noticing extremes and how they shift the body, the breath, walking pace & rhythm, eye gaze, attitude, etc.
A clever and attentive facilitator, or your own imagination if you have trained it well, can assist by giving unpredictable instructions and guidance.After a while in a session, or, after multiple graduated sessions, you may attempt to discover Neutral Mask. Everything up ‘til now has been research and discovery of self-habits.
Aim to find a completely neutral mode of behavior, of walking around, of breathing, of seeing, of embodiment. Neutral should be totally effortless, yet available and ready. Neutral should not feel like needing anything at all to charge you up or empty you out. In some way you should feel invisible or transparent without the need for any contortions of the body, breath, energy, etc. Pay close awareness to the face and facial expressions and tics. Relax and open the face yet do not “close it down”. As you walk around, you may need to slow down until you find the appropriate Neutral pacing. Can you maintain neutral as you speed up or slow down? How about if you perform a simple action now other than walking around, such as picking something up, sitting down, etc?
This exercise is a nigh infinite tuning practice. Yet, after a while, you will find something closer to neutral that is refreshing, yet non-descript.
Pro Tip: To quickly find neutral, once you have played with best/worst/normal a decent bit, you can frequently alternate between “best” and “normal” to find a neutral that is beneficial for your nervous system. I often do this just walking around on errands etcetera, and repeat “Best day”, “Neutral mask” to myself silently while body scanning and using wide-angle vision (see below).
3. Spinal Undulations - basic functional integration
It is important with this exercise to go softly and not overdo it, do not over-extend your range of motion, do not jump into pressing or forcing through any perceived limitations. There is a high degree of risk here to increase pain prediction neurology even when doing such a simple exercise because you want to see how far you can go because you think you are supposed to be some kind of circus arts master. You have been warned. If you choose to learn the hard way, that is your karma.
You may find this practice more fruitful if lying on the ground in various positions and then graduating to standing after some time befriending and orienting to your spinal column.
With this practice you will use the eyes to move and lead the spine. You can do this with eyes open and/or closed, but one of the main points is to align the eyes, the breath (diaphragm) and the spinal engine. The function is to learn how to use the body structure efficiently, called functional integration. This is essentially the core of Feldenkrais/Awareness Through Movement.
Starting on the ground, doing some of the first exercise in this article.
Beginning to move the eyes around the sockets, looking/seeing into the end ranges and noticing how that feels, and how the eyes ripple through the body and affect other parts of the body. You can and should do this again every time you change position: lying on your back, side, front, etc.
Allow for yawning and relaxing to occur as needed, especially when you encounter discomfort, fear or pain while articulating the yes. Closing and resting the eyes as much as you need. Performing this exercise in various bright or dim light, artificial or natural lighting will change internal sensations.
Return to previous phases of this exercise whenever you want or need.When ready to “progress” and add complexity to this practice, begin by letting the eyes turn the head and noticing the cascading effect of eyes on the spine. Gradually increase this action over time and allow for the eyes to affect the upper spine (cervical vertebrae), mid spine (thoracis vertebrae), low spine (lumbar vertebrae) and sacrum/tailbone/pelvis. Eventually, the eyes will “drag” the feet, as the legs and feet will organize instinctually under the spine as the eyes lead the spine and torso. The arms and hands will act as another pair of legs.
Slowly progress from lying positions to crawling and back again, making sure to never skip any steps in between these big positional changes. Continue to let the eyes lead the rest of the body, even when it “doesn’t make sense”. Slower & smaller is the key to integration. Notice minute weight shifts as a way to “ride” the waves of gravity on the structure (bones) of the body.When ready to progress from lying to standing, and from standing to walking, do not skip steps and always be able to reverse your movements deliberately and slowly. A conscious facilitator can randomly que you to “progress or regress/reverse” (red light/yellow light/green light LOL) your movements to test your skill in this regard.
An Optional tactic is to make continuous toning/melodic vocal sounds as you move and notice when and if you stop (hold the breath in a bracing/fear habit).
4. Walking Forward with The Spinal Engine - learning true balance
This exercise is to practice True balance while walking. The simple mantric cue to repeat to yourself is “Head Over Foot”.
The breakdown is as follows:
Warm up by practicing Tippy-toes for 25 repetitions with both legs, rest, and then repetitions on single leg. You can use a wall or dowel rod/staff to balance.
Optional warm-up is to add shaking in place for an amount of time. Variations of shaking in place include allowing heels to come off the ground or preventing heels from coming off the ground. Both variations produce useful and different results.
When walking Aim to not land on the heel bone, but instead land on the outer/lateral area of the mid-foot. Experiment to find the right spot. It is located on the ball of the foot and the tippy-toe warm up should acquaint you with this area of the plantar foot.
As you land on this area of the ball of the foot, the mass of your cranium should be directly vertically aligned with it. This is “Head Over Foot”. You may start by looking down to stabilize your balance but very quickly you should look at the horizon line so that you can internally FEEL what head over foot FEELS like, not what it “looks” like.
As you walk step-by-step, you will notice a Tilt and Shift of the head and spine. This is the snake-like undulatory pattern that rotates the body spirally to locomote in space. That is, as a holistic, integrated Spiral shape and motion. Waves & Spirals, Tilts & Shifts. This is the Spinal Engine.
You can test your balance by negating momentum. That is, on each step, you should be able to pause and stop in perfect balance, head over foot, for a beat or more before continuing or changing direction.
To advance this exercise, you begin applying the above instructions to different directions in locomotion, zigzag, lateral sideways, backwards, etc.
Going for a deliberate, conscious, Head-Over-Foot Walk for ten minutes in a row is a good place to start feeling the “Spinal Pump.”
5. Walking Backwards - daoist backwards walking
This exercise builds on the previous one. It has some extra caveats and warmups.
First, this should be done on safe ground, where one will be less likely to trip or fall over uneven ground. A beach, large lawn, park or courtyard is a good choice. Next best is something like a basketball court.
Next, learn to activate relaxed, wide-angle vision. A way to do this is to gaze forward at the horizon, raising your hands together in front of you with fingers open and available. Begin wiggling the fingers while moving the arms and hands out to the sides equally without dropping them below the midline of the eyes. The eyes should remain straight ahead while still seeing the motion of the fingers. Slowly increase the width of the hands to reach the limit of your vision and wiggle the fingers here. Take a deep breath and relax, “de-focusing” the eyes and taking in as much horizontal view as possible. Doing this a few times should increase wide angle vision significantly within a few moments. Maintain this style of seeing as you perform the exercise.
You will perform backwards walking (in a straight line) for a number of steps or amount of time. Ten minutes or 100 steps is good to work up to to start.
Head-over-foot still applies, but there will be some more emphasis on the heel of the foot, but this doesn’t mean to strike the ground with the heel! The landing of steps should be soft and springy, just like the previous exercise!
The body will still sway and move as in the previous exercise, but perhaps less so.
As you practice, open your gaze, feel into the back body, slow down, and feel a light smile in your heart/chest. You are not “going anywhere”, achieving anything, winning or losing. This is a time to practice the true nondual View while moving around in the body as a walking meditation. Return, return, return. Doing & Being are the Same and have always been the same.
6. Listening Into The Ground - resting in natural sensing
Returning to the ground for the final exercise in this article, this is a listening exercise to help you connect listening and feeling, auditory with tactile sensing.
You may be in any position as long as some part of your body is in direct contact with the ground/earth. If the ground is wet, you can still do this wearing waterproof clothing, etc.
The first stage is just resting into the ground and feeling the pressure of gravity slowly change the orientation of your fluids. This will take a few minutes at least. Adjust for comfort as needed, experiment with various configurations of limbs and torso. Excessive pain will prevent proper training so attend to that if it is an issue. This may require you to address issues that you have been avoiding due to a crisis of imagination and Wrong View/Wrong Story.
Second stage is to begin listening & feeling into the ground, the same way you listen attentively to music. Even if you don’t think you hear anything, continue as if there is something to hear. The “trick” is to listen with the skin as well as the ears, the way that a deep bass sound vibrates the air next to the amp/speaker. For this stage it is good to set a timer for a desired amount of time to demarcate periods of practice and to “rescue” you from yourself.
The “goal” is not necessarily to hear anything, to attain some kind of psychic phenomena! You are not here to “gain messages” from “magic spirits”! Just like in Zuowang meditation (discussed in the January and February 2025 Premium Monthly lectures), you are not attaining anything. Not striving to be rewarded or saved. The practice is the point! By learning to actively direct your awareness and senses, you will resolve karmas, break up ghostly addictions, and increase access to your natural freedom. Listening-Feeling IS the method and the fruit, and it is present now.
State-based action keywords:
You can use these, and the many others within this entire document, as means of practicing shifting your state at will.
Patience, Concealing/concealment, Observing, Flexible, Cynical, Conserving, Cautious, Chthonic, Rooted, Present, Secret, Honest.
Other ideas:
time boxing your day - you only have about two 2-hour periods (4 hrs total per day) of creative flow neuro-state potential each day, and even this fluctuates based on a variety of factors, personal karmas and conduct. You should make an analysis of your days, when you have the most energy and for what kinds of activities and time box your day accordingly, allowing for improvisation/flexibility. This topic is a lot on its own, so I’ll just leave you with these clues for now.
practicing restriction/restraint - a “wait & see” approach
keeping large amounts of open (non-scheduled) time
being extremely picky with who you spend time with - (social media is not your friend)
being extremely picky with what you say and to whom you say it
prioritizing rest - naps, sleep and dream practice
prioritizing various non-business/non-monetized art practices
disappearing
practicing minimum effective effort
7. Housekeeping
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This free post is an example of the amount of value provided in the premium subscriber tier. Every month I give a 3-hour lecture/demo (live on zoom and also recorded) about the Daoist-inspired nondual animist correspondences to mindset, behavior and practice according to seasonal and calendrical qi, as well as provide 1-2 other premium posts per month. The subscription cost is severely underpriced to promote accessibility of this information.
I will be following up this yin wood snake post throughout the year, through the 8 mystery gates (equinoxes/solstices and the beginning of each season), to track how snake is moving through these 8 thresholds. The first observation will happen in the Feb 5th Night Gardeners Premium Member Lecture, moving through Spring Equinox. (already posted at the time of this article’s release)
This year, 2025, I also plan (fingers crossed) on unveiling a second community subscription service in which I go deeper into Dream practice, Artmaking and more Somatics/Improvisational Methods which will be on another platform since substack doesn’t allow for multiple tiers. Comment below if interested in this private community membership. Lowest tier cost likely starting at 88-108$ USD per month, depending on divination results and committed participants.
I also provide individual clients with Daoist Natal Polestar Astrology sessions, Yijing Divination and personalized consultation. You can find all of that in the Session tab on the top of the page when viewing in a web browser.
2025 yin wood snake links
Below is a living document where I compile all of the various lunar new year analysis by colleagues.
May all benefit from resolving their inheritances and transforming their karmas!
"listen-feel as an action-state-of-potential"
Nice phrasing!
Keen to try some of these practices. I haven’t played the recording yet but time will allow this week. I would join an exploration group