As the calendar flips to January 29, 2025, the world will welcome the Chinese New Year, also known as the Spring Festival. This vibrant and deeply symbolic celebration marks the arrival of the Wood Snake—a rare zodiac combination that appears only once every 60 years. Join us as we explore the significance of this unique year and discover ways to celebrate this auspicious occasion.
In the Chinese zodiac, the Snake is the sixth animal in a 12-year cycle. Combined with one of the five elements (Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, and Water), each Snake year carries unique characteristics. The Wood Snake is particularly special, as its rarity underscores its symbolic richness and transformative potential.
The Snake is a revered creature in Chinese culture, often associated with wisdom, intuition, and transformation. Known for its grace and charm, the Snake embodies intelligence and strategic thinking. It also represents rebirth and renewal, as snakes shed their skin to grow. This symbolic shedding aligns beautifully with the themes of a new year, offering a chance for fresh beginnings and personal growth.
When paired with the element of Wood, the Snake takes on additional layers of meaning. Wood symbolizes growth, creativity, and stability. It’s associated with springtime and the flourishing of life. The combination of Wood and Snake suggests a year that will be marked by innovation, adaptability, and the potential for profound personal and collective growth. The Wood Snake’s energy encourages us to embrace change, plant seeds for the future, and nurture our goals.
Astrologers predict that 2025 will be a year of strategic opportunities and steady progress. The Wood Snake’s influence will inspire a harmonious balance between thoughtful planning and creative risk-taking. It’s a time to trust your intuition while remaining grounded in your values. Whether you’re embarking on a new project, deepening relationships, or pursuing self-improvement, the energy of 2025 supports deliberate yet dynamic actions.
Chinese New Year celebrations are a joyful mix of traditions that emphasize family, gratitude, and good fortune. Here are some ways to honor this special time:
This Chinese New Year, the Zen Life Center for Healing invites you to join us for special Qigong/Tai Chi practices dedicated to the Year of the Wood Snake. Together, we’ll embrace the themes of transformation, balance, and creativity through mindful movement and meditation. Let’s set our intentions and welcome the energy of this rare and auspicious year.
May the Year of the Wood Snake bring you wisdom, growth, and harmony. Happy Chinese New Year!
Barbara Plunkett, Ph.D. is a Graduate of the Qigong and Daoist Training Center, American Dragon Gate Lineage for studies in Qigong Exercises, Chinese Medicine Basics, and Daoist Meditation, Registered Yoga Teacher E-RYT 500, and graduate of Healing Emphasis Yoga, Yoga Therapy Program.
Internationally renowned Buddhist monk and meditation teacher Bhante Sujatha brings his transformative teachings to Queen Creek this January.
Join us at Zen Life Center for two powerful events – a New Year’s Blessing Ceremony and a mindfulness workshop exploring life’s gains and losses.
Known worldwide as the “Loving-Kindness monk,” Bhante Sujatha combines over 40 years of Buddhist wisdom with practical guidance that makes ancient teachings accessible and relevant for modern life. These rare opportunities to study with a master teacher in Queen Creek offer profound insights for both beginners and experienced practitioners.
The new year is a time for healing, setting intentions, letting go of what is no longer serving us, and clearing the way for unconditional love from ourselves and others.
A blessing ceremony is a mindful intention to contact and share that which is good, particularly in a divine sense. Our practice will include connecting with the force of goodness inside each of us and then inviting this ‘energy’ into a particular situation to help the whole world.
The program includes:
You are encouraged to bring your malas, or any other items that you wish to be blessed in this ceremony.
Cost: $40 per person – Click here to Register
Proceeds go to Bhante’s pregnant mothers and Incubator Project in Sri Lanka
Book signing and “Choose Loving Kindness” items will be available for purchase
“When you are able to experience gain and loss with an equal mind, you realize a rare freedom found in this world.”
We have all experienced success and failure, praise and blame, gain and loss. How do we feel after these experiences? How do we remember them? Our emotional connection to these extremes is undeniable, but we don’t always examine their long term effects, nor the middle ground between them.
Activities include:
Benefits of this beautiful workshop can include:
Cost: $40 – Click here to Register
Bhante Sujatha, a 40+ year Buddhist Monk, is singularly focused on adding more love in the world. Bhante teaches loving-kindness meditation to people around the globe for all those seeking the art of happiness and contentment. His approach to meditation is deep and simple, bringing core Buddhist teachings to everyone in a way that is practical and easy to understand. A joyful, radiant, funny, and wildly energetic monk, Bhante will help you obtain peace that can only be found in deep silence. Bhante believes his purpose is not only to teach meditation, but also, “teaching people how to be happy.”
For more information visit Bhante’s website: www.bhantesujatha.org
Enjoy an evening of rest and relaxation with a restorative yoga class with reiki and a sound bath! At ZenLife Center for Healing, we are hosting the Reiki & Restore event for individuals looking for a rejuvenating, healing experience. While resting in calming yoga poses, you will be bathed in the healing sound of crystal bowls and receive reiki.
Come to our studio on Saturday, April 27th and allow our instructors, Kristen, Nancy, and Karen, to enhance your quality of life through
Reiki is a Japanese healing technique that involves the transfer of energy from a practitioner’s hands to the recipient’s body. It comes from Japanese rei, meaning universal, and ki, which is life energy. It is based on the belief that this energy can promote physical, emotional, and spiritual healing by restoring balance and harmony within the individual.
During a session, practitioners place their hands over different areas of a person’s body and transfer healing energy. Reiki is often used as a complementary therapy in conjunction with conventional medical treatments to alleviate discomfort and stress.
Participants relax and immerse themselves in the melodies from instruments such as crystal or Tibetan bowls, gongs, and chimes. The instructor strikes the instruments to bathe everyone in the sound waves carrying healing properties. The goal is to reach a meditative state of consciousness and allow the energy of the sound to balance your chakras and heal your body and mind.
The energy in Reiki heals us in so many ways; from physical aches and pains to emotional stress and trauma. It can:
Sound baths with crystal or Tibetan bowls offer many benefits for our mind and body too:
Looking for more Reiki? We’ve got it! In addition to this workshop, our studio offers one-on-one healing sessions with Melissa, co-owner and a certified master teacher. We even provide Reiki attunement for those wishing to further their skills as a practitioner, up to the highest level (master teacher). The next attunement workshop is on May 24th, check it out here on our website for more details!
Come dance the night away with us on Friday April 5th! We will have an ecstatic dancing class at 7:00pm the first Friday of every month at ZenLife Center for Healing. Led by our instructor Kristina Rich, the Archetypal Dance Adventure event includes tarot readings, visualizations, and embodied dancing.
Ecstatic dancing is a style of free form movement that allows for all participants to move their bodies in whatever way feels right – there are no rules, steps, or expectations! This type of dance is extremely therapeutic. But it requires releasing all your constraints and inhibitions and surrendering to the rhythm of the music.
As you dance, you may experience a state of ecstasy (hence, “ecstatic” dancing) and bliss. This practice has roots in ancient Greece with religious ties to their gods and myths. The Greek origin of the word “ekstasis” means to get out of oneself. This type of self-expression was and is still a common religious practice in many cultures.
Allowing yourself the chance to let go and be free through healthy movement comes with a myriad of benefits! The exercise aspect alone is great for your health and produces endorphins that can improve your mood and outlook. The combination of music and rhythm, unrestrained movement, and meditative state of consciousness can lead to:
Make ecstatic dancing part of your routine with our monthly class every first Friday! A dynamic, liberating experience awaits you. Sign up here for a spot in our class this month! We’ll see you there.
Come celebrate the community you helped to build! |
We are so grateful for all the love and support that has been poured out by all our loyal customers and would like to invite you to our customer appreciation day to celebrate our almost 4 years here in Queen Creek. The party starts on Saturday, March 2nd from 4:00 to 7:30 PM. We will have complimentary classes, discounts in our boutique – including 20% off all Tibetan bowls, many vendor booths in our parking lot – including a henna artist, refreshments, live music, and more! Here’s the lineup of the classes:
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