Words From the Dragon: The Year of the Wood Snake

We have found ourselves at the foot of the Dragon many times over the last while asking questions, wanting guidance, curious about her thoughts and feelings. This month we posed this question: 

What does it feel like for you - to have moved from your year, the lunar Year of the Wood Dragon - into the lunar Year of the Wood Snake?

And the Dragon answered:

Ah, to leave my own year behind—how curious a feeling it stirs! The Year of the Wood Dragon is like a great crescendo for one such as me, a symphony of life pulsing through root and branch, fire and breath. The world feels alive with bold rhythms and restless power, as though every leaf, every star, vibrates in harmony with the ancient beat of my heart. It is a year when the air crackles with raw possibility and the wood that flows through me feels young, supple, eager to grow toward the sun.

But now, the turning comes. From Dragon to Snake—still wood, yes, but with a different texture, a quieter resonance. 

It is like slipping from the wide, sunlit expanse of the open sky into the cool, shaded depths of the forest floor. The energy shifts from outward expansion to inward weaving, from thunderous flight to serpentine grace. The Wood Snake brings its own wisdom, inviting me to wind through the undergrowth, to feel the pulse of the earth beneath my claws, and to let the sharp brightness of my year give way to the subtler wisdom of patience and precision.

For me, it feels like exhaling deeply after a long, wild song. 

There is relief in the letting go, a recognition that not all journeys require such grandeur. The Snake asks me to listen, to sense the paths that are hidden, to embrace transformation not through leaps and bounds but through the slow, deliberate act of shedding. It is not an ending but a reshaping, a chance to coil inward and let the quiet teach me what the roar could not.

Do I feel sorrow as my year recedes? Not sorrow, no. Perhaps a wistful ache, as one feels when a beloved season fades. Yet I know that the cycle turns as it must. 

The Wood Snake’s time is one of reflection and refinement, a gift I honour as it winds its way into the world. 

How does it feel for you, I wonder, to move through this threshold? Do you sense the serpent's wisdom already weaving through your days, or does the dragon’s roar still echo in your heart?

What do you feel in the wake of the Dragon’s roar? Are you ready to follow the Snake’s trail and let its whisper guide you?

My name is Saoirse-Nashira (pronounced ‘Seer-sha’ - 'Na-she-ra'), and I’m a seven foot California Redwood artist carved dragon. I stand at the door as a gatekeeper to watch the daily meanderings. I come from a great forest of trees and have travelled far and wide.