What Ends Feeds What Continues

acetheyogi
4 days ago
5 min read

Reflections on the Lessons of the Year of the Snake Before Entering the Year of the Fire Horse

As the Year of the Snake comes to a close, many of us may notice how this cycle has moved through our bodies in quiet, internal, and embodied ways rather than through obvious or dramatic change. This year asked for patience and attention, inviting a slowing down that made it possible to notice what was loosening beneath the surface before it ever appeared in our thoughts, decisions, or outward circumstances. Some changes revealed themselves gradually, settling into the body first, reshaping sensation and pacing long before they could be named.

From an embodied perspective, cycles are lived rather than conceptual. The body carries its own sense of timing, holding awareness of when something has reached completion and when space has opened for something new. Readiness emerges through listening rather than decision-making. The Year of the Snake has drawn many of us back into that kind of attunement.

The Year of the Snake: Shedding in the Body

Across many cultural traditions, the snake appears as a symbol connected to renewal, protection, and regeneration, carrying an understanding of transformation that unfolds through cycles. In West African Vodun traditions, the serpent is associated with Dan or Dangbé, a life force tied to continuity, lineage, and balance (Herskovits, 1938). In Chinese zodiac systems, the Snake year is often understood as a period that draws attention inward, supporting discernment and subtle change.

Shedding during this year was often felt gradually and relationally. Certain roles may have softened their grip. Long-held patterns may have begun to lose their urgency. Desires may have shifted shape as the body adjusted to a different pace of being with oneself and with others. Some attachments completed their role quietly, without resistance or explanation. Posture may have changed. Breath may have deepened. And understanding may have followed in its own timing.

From a holistic sexual health perspective, shedding often shows up through changes in how the body responds to intimacy, touch, and connection. Sexual health lives in rhythm, responding to how resourced the body feels and how much space exists for presence. The Snake year has asked for attention to these subtle signals, especially those that are easy to miss when life moves quickly.

Within this same context, yoga and somatic practices also offer steady grounding for this awareness by creating a relationship with the body that unfolds over time rather than all at once. Through slow movement, sensation has space to surface without being rushed, while breath makes it possible to notice where grasping remains. Over time, stillness allows insight to emerge through sensation, supporting shedding as a process held by care and sustained attention.

The Ouroboros: Care That Sustains Life

In the Sacred Forest of Kpassè in modern day Benin Republic, the Ouroboros appears as a serpent formed in a closed circle. Across cultures, this symbol reflects continuity and regeneration, carrying an understanding of life as something sustained through cycles rather than linear progression (Eliade, 1959).

In this setting, the circle holds a grounded meaning. It speaks to care that keeps life moving over time, care that allows endings to complete, and beginnings to gather energy without being rushed or forced.

Benin Republic Ouroboros Snake feeding it's own tail

The serpent’s closed loop reflects care—the ongoing maintenance that keeps life moving.

This understanding shapes how the closing of the Snake year can be held. Completion arrives as a settling, as a recognition that certain cycles have done their work and can now be laid down, while others quietly gather energy, waiting for conditions that support movement.

Cycles, Sexual Health, and Ancestral Timing

Many Pan-African cosmologies understand time as relational, carried through land, lineage, and embodied memory rather than fixed dates on a calendar (Mbiti, 1990). Knowledge moves through practice and return, through sustained relationship with what supports life. Healing unfolds slowly, shaped by care held over time.

From this perspective, sexual health is inherently cyclical. Desire and healing both move in waves, responding to experience and context. Boundaries evolve as the body integrates what it has lived through. Capacity shifts as steadiness returns. And pleasure grows through presence and trust.

The body carries memory shaped by history and lived experience, often holding knowledge that predates conscious understanding. Listening to the body becomes a way of reconnecting with that wisdom, allowing healing to move at a pace the body recognizes as sustainable.

Preparing for the Year of the Fire Horse

The Fire Horse year carries an energy associated with unstoppable movement, energy, and passion; bringing momentum that invites direction and clarity. Preparation for that energy begins with integration. What the Snake year loosened now asks to be carried forward with intention.

This orientation lives in the body first. Movement becomes sustainable when it grows from grounded attention. Energy flows more freely when it is guided with care. Breath anchors action as presence shapes momentum.

Discernment plays an important role here. The body signals where energy wants to move and where it needs support before doing so. Desire responds to clarity, creating the conditions for energy to move without strain.

Holistic practices continue to offer guidance here, supporting strength that builds gradually and movement that remains connected to breath and sensation. Stillness supports motion, allowing action to emerge from steadiness.

Carrying the Cycle Forward

The Year of the Snake has offered lessons through shedding, settling, and renewal. The Ouroboros reflects how cycles sustain life through care and attention. Preparation for the Fire Horse year unfolds through embodiment, timing, and presence.

What ends feeds what continues...

As we move forward, this rhythm can be carried into our relationships, our practices, and our collective paths of healing. Transformation unfolds through cycles held with intention, guided by the body’s wisdom and the patience to listen.

For those who want to stay with these themes beyond reading, I’ve created a guided offering rooted in sexual health and embodied care that supports integration of the Snake year’s lessons while orienting toward the Fire Horse cycle, available at a reduced rate for a short window. This resource invites reflection, embodied practice, and pacing rooted in care.

Explore the Offer

*Below are a few photos from my time at the Python Temple in Benin Republic, shared as part of an ongoing archive. To see more, you can visit my YouTube page for full behind the scenes content.