2023: A Soft Wood Year

A Year to Flourish & Thrive!

The Yellow Earth year is complete. Cue the collective sigh of relief. If you’re reading this, you made it out with your life. Sadly, not everyone was so lucky.

Soft Wood

The Soft Wood energy, following a Yellow Earth year, feels like the winds of change, clearing all of the stuck and stagnate energy, removing all the detours and delays, unblocking all the opportunities and offers and cleaning up all the debris, swiftly making all the challenges only a distant memory and any obstacles in your course, crumble and blow away, like dust in the wind.

While Chinese astrology speaks of 2023 as the Year of the Yin Water Rabbit, in feng shui, it’s a Soft Wood element year. What makes it Soft Wood is the number visiting the center gua this year. On February 4th, 2023, the Green 4 will officially move to the center sector and take up residence there until February 3, 2024.

Soft Wood energy is highly auspicious! It brings love and romance, a steady stream of wealth and prosperity, as well as, youth and beauty, entrepreneurial success and academic achievement, literary fame and artistic creativity, and travel for business and pleasure to the four corners of the world!

Balanced Soft Wood energy is patient and poised, clear thinking and open minded. It’s capable of leadership and is highly intelligent. Composed and self-assured, it’s flexible and able to thrive under intense pressure, weathering whatever life brings its way. It has an ability to learn anything, to grow any business, effortlessly attracting the right team of people to build wealth while providing quality products and/or services. It may inspire a hunger for knowledge and information and make you feel more devoted to your home, family and friends.  

Imbalanced Soft Wood energy can be discontent, demanding and fault finding, contrary and arrogant, judgmental and opportunistic, impatient and always on edge, addicted to doing and prone to depression, even suicidal.

Soft Wood is an emotional element. This year, you may become more aware of your emotional states of being and connect more with the emotional aspects of yourself, others and life as a human being. Your emotions may become the predominate theme of your life. You may seek out emotional connections with family, friends, and especially lovers. In fact, the way you relate with people may be to make connections with them on an emotional level. You may feel the need to emote and be with other people who are able and willing to engage with you emotionally. 

You may be in for a ride on a roller coaster of emotions, expressing your emotions, reading books about feelings or emotional health and having an increased desire to feel a wide variety and degrees of emotions. Let emotions be your guide. Emotions are unique to being human. Let them color your world.

Soft Wood embodies the Law of Least Resistance. It knows that resistance is self-destructive and surrenders instead to whatever the wind brings its way. It’s efficient in collecting, storing and utilizing available resources of sunlight, water, nutrients. It effortlessly receives what it needs from the earth without competing for the rays of the sun, draining the life sustaining water supply or depleting the mineral rich soil. It never takes more than it needs. 

Soft Wood, like its name, can be a little soft and yielding. It’s resilient, leaning into life and just as quickly and easily springing back from life’s little setbacks. Soft Wood sways in the wind. It bends, but never breaks with the winds of change and the waters of prosperity.

A tree falls the way it leans. Be careful which way you lean.

~ Dr. Seuss, The Lorax

Peach Blossom

In feng shui, the Green 4 is known as the “Peach Blossom” star. Peach Blossom energy brings new love and romance, dating invitations and marriage proposals. This love is new or renewed.

If you’re single, don’t be surprised if you have a new romantic interest, decide to take a new lover or ask someone new out on a date. 

If you’re in a committed relationship, it’s important to rekindle the love in your marriage, recommit yourself to your partner and even renew your marital vows of love and loyalty. Otherwise, this energy has the potential to cause extramarital affairs.

It’s also a great time to fall back in love with your life. Renew the love you have for yourself. Romanticize your life.

When the winds of change blow, some people build walls, others build windmills.

~ Chinese Proverb

Persistent Wind

The Soft Wood element is represented by the “persistent wind”. This wind is impatient, tireless and contrary. The whipping gusts and driving gales, ceaselessly moving to and fro, may bring some strange, extreme and intense weather, resulting in a super storm or “the perfect storm”. We will see much wind, swirling up and whirling around, sweeping across and spiraling down. 

It’s commonly know that feng shui means “wind and water”. Wind and water are what the ancient Chinese farmers relied on for peaceful, productive and prosperous lives. Wind is the feng, while the shui is water in feng shui . 

May gentle breezes bring glad tidings and swift currents happy days. May air streams cascade into windfalls and fragrant zephyrs draw your attention to the sweet presence of angels among you. May you find your “thinking spot” on the blustery days and call on beloved friends to wish them a merry “Windsday”. 

May the road rise to meet you, may the wind be always at your back.

~ Irish blessing

Meander through life as the wind flows, like a river through the sky, above it all and yet caressing every surface and edge, each curve and corner. Let life in, like the breath that brings life affirming energy into your heart, where you can touch your soul, where you can feel your consciousness expand. Let life change you, uplift you and sweep you away; in a flurry of opportunity. Let the wind beneath your wings take you high and let you soar to a world of new experiences, new perspectives, new opportunities and new possibilities. Let your life be a moving meditation, a dance of intentional thoughts to a song of mantras and to the rhythm of the steady beat of your heart. Let the easy inspiration of your breath carry you along the surface of the great deep, creating stillness of mind, quietness of spirit and expansion of consciousness.

Love & Romance

Soft Wood energy brings the potential to fall in love this year. Peach Blossom is the flower of romance. It inspires us to seek out a new romantic partner and begin a new romantic relationship. 

This is a fun and flirty energy of first loves and crushes, infatuation and love addictions. It’s the Spring twitter-pated frenzied energy of animal mating season. You may fall in love, hard and fast, and fall out of love just as quickly. This hormonally driven adolescent lovesickness can show up as serial dating, summer romances and affairs of the heart. You may become more sexually active or adventurous and engage in casual hook ups so make sure you’re prepared to prevent pregnancy and STIs. 

Love and be loved. Just remember to love the one you are with. Otherwise you’re sure to develop a wandering eye, get easily distracted and stray.

If you’re in an unhappy relationship, you may be tempted to cheat and start an affair to remember. Avoid love triangles by strengthening your current relationship with expressions of appreciation, thoughtful gifts, words of endearment, displays of affection, love notes, and random acts of kindness. Learn and master each other’s love language.

Singles can expect to meet their soulmate or a romantic partner, take a lover, make a friend with benefits or at the very least, find a bump buddy. 

Some may even connect with their Twin Flame, currently present on Earth or residing just across the veil.

Wealth & Prosperity

Soft Wood’s Life Center is Wealth & Prosperity. Expect a windfall, an unanticipated gift, unexpected checks in the mail, an unforeseen inheritance, a surprisingly large refund or stimulus check, or other ‘out of the blue’ monetary boons.

Feel free to prosper!

~ Marilyn Jenett

Prosperity is yours by Divine right. It’s your responsibility to be prosperous, to be abundant and to create passive streams of income so that you can free up your time and devote your energy in service to humanity, sharing your gifts and talents with the world.

Thrive & Flourish

Soft Wood energy is represented by the evergreen, a tree that lives long and prospers and shows its true color every day of its life. Its greatest presence on the Earth is an immense forest of centenary evergreens found at the top of the world in the Arctic Circle.

As the seasons change from Spring to Summer and Fall to Winter, Soft Wood trees continue to grow tall and strong and stay ever green. They thrive and maintain their healthy, youthful appearance while Hard Wood (deciduous trees) change their colors with the seasons; transforming from spring blossom to summer fruit and then fallen leaves to bare-naked branches.  

If you’re looking for a word for the year, thrive or flourish would be perfect for 2023!

Youth & Beauty

Soft Wood is represented by eternal youth, vibrant health and longevity. Soft Wood elements really value having soft and smooth, healthy and beautiful skin. They like maintaining a youthful appearance, healing blemishes and erasing any scars, fine lines and wrinkles. The eternal spring and fountain of youth, they will invest in beauty treatments and anti-aging serums, make room in their budget and schedule for facials, and include am and pm skincare regimens in their daily self-care routines.

Make 2023 your Glow Up year! Restore your youth and beauty, inside and out!

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.

~ Mark Twain

Travel

Soft Wood years bring many opportunities for travel to the great cities and beautiful places of the Earth. Go and explore your world. Travel with your lover or best friend, with your children or family, with a group or alone. Break out of your comfort zone; burst the bubble you are living in and get out there! Even though you might be glad to return home after your trip, you won’t regret your travels, as they will create a change in you that no other experience can. Travel will broaden your worldview and make you appreciate other ways of being in the world.

Plan a trip even if it’s just a day trip or weekend getaway. Go on a road trip. Spend a few months living in another country. Have a destination wedding or honeymoon is a favorite vacation spot.

We are travelers on a cosmic journey, stardust, swirling and dancing in the eddies and whirlpools of infinity. Life is eternal. We have stopped for a moment to encounter each other, to meet, to love, to share. This is a precious moment. It is a little parenthesis in eternity.

~ Paulo Coelho

Business & Entrepreneurship

Soft Wood is represented by the archetype of The Entrepreneur. Its energy excels in all forms of business. Entrepreneurs and small business owners will have a very good year. Your success will be measurable in terms of sales and profit. 

It’s a good year to start, build or grow a business. Rebrand or relaunch your business. Hang up your shingle. Celebrate with a grand opening. 

Academics & Artistry

Soft Wood enhances our ability to learn new things, study and excel in academics. It’s especially favorable for students and writers. Creatives and artists will also feel supported, especially when it comes to making money at their art.

I wish you a Happy Soft Wood Year! Enjoy the romance and prosperity, the creativity and entrepreneurial success. Make the most of this fortunate energy every day of the year.

☯

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