Gong Xi Fa Chi! Welcome to the Year of the Rabbit.

With February’s dark moon comes the year of the rabbit, and we say good bye to the year of the tiger (which is also my year). So what does the rabbit symbolize? I confess, I immediately think fertility and think of millions of rabbits bouncing around green meadows, I even get a little hungry. But perhaps I am not the person to ask–here’s a quote from the Medicine card book about rabbit:

Rabbit medicine people are so afraid of tragedy, illness, disaster, and “being taken,” that they call those very fears to them to teach them lessons. The keynote here is: what you resist will persist! What you fear most is what you will become.

During Chinese New Year, the people pay respect to their ancestors and in keeping with this tradition I am sharing a message from my own ancestor, about her experiences while doing Christian missionary work in China in 1937. As far as I can tell her trip was from Swatow (Shantou) to perhaps Hangpu (‘Hopo’).