8 Ways to Create Good Fortune in 2025 Year of the Snake

The Year of the Snake presents us with a cosmic opportunity—a gentle transition from the Dragon's intensity and a chance to release what no longer serves us. In this article, "8 Ways to Create Good Fortune in the 2025 Year of the Snake," I share how to transition smoothly into the new lunar year by aligning with its natural rhythms and subtle energies.

Popular culture often trivializes Chinese astrology yet it rests on a wealth of sophisticated esoteric knowledge. Through years of observing the astrological cycles, I’ve witnessed how accurately the astrological year reflects in personal and collective karma.

My journey into wisdom traditions started with a decade-long study of traditional Chinese therapies, Daoist philosophy and martial arts. In recent years, I’ve returned to studying the I Ching (Book of Changes)—the oldest and most continuously used system of wisdom and divination. I have also been journaling about the influences of annual Chinese astrology as I find it useful, reliable, and enlightening. Perhaps you will, too :) 

Transitioning to the Year of the Snake in 2025

Each year brings particular qualities and influences. The initial months of the year’s shifting energies can feel uncomfortable, especially when we fight against the changes. The energetic transition can take up to 3 months. 

In 2025, the bold expansive dragon exits the stage left with characteristic drama—whipping its tail in a last display of intensity—before the snake’s more measured energy takes hold. 

This shift asks something specific of us. Where 2024 called for pushing boundaries and making fast forceful moves, 2025 invites the opposite approach. The sooner we let go of dragon intensity and allow it to ascend back to its celestial habitat, the sooner we will align with the current rhythms of the snake’s subtle, grounded, introspective wisdom.

Before we look at 2025's energies in more detail, it helps if you get a basic idea of the two foundational frameworks of Chinese metaphysical thought.

Foundations of Chinese Metaphysical Thought

The Heavenly Stems: Our 10 Elemental Energies

Chinese metaphysical systems recognize five basic elements that describe how energy moves through life: Metal condenses, Water flows, Wood grows, Fire transforms, and Earth stabilizes. Each element exists in both yin (receptive) and yang (active) forms, creating ten possible energies. These elemental energies affect everything from collective movements to unconscious forces.

The Earthly Branches: Our 12 Animal Energies

The twelve animal signs represent natural earthly forces that influence our daily lives. Each animal is associated with specific hours (for example, Snake hours are 9-11 am) and body organs (Snake governs the small intestine). These animal energies also guide traditional practices like Feng Shui, martial arts, and agriculture.

How These Create Each Year's Energy

These two frameworks create an interrelated map of how natural energies flow through time, space, and human experience. Every Chinese Lunar year is governed by both one Heavenly Stem (element) and one Earthly Branch (animal). For example, 2025 combines Yin Wood (the stem) with Snake (the branch) to create this year's unique energy pattern. This combination of the element and the animal determines the qualities and influences we experience throughout the year.

The Quality and Energy of 2024 and 2025 

The Heavenly Stems (Elements) of 2024 and 2025 are both Wood. In Chinese astrology, the Wood element is associated with growth, vitality, and expansion. It represents spring, the east direction, green color, renewal, and upward movement.

The wood element is also about intelligence, learning, and leadership. We can successfully strategize, plan, and implement with a healthy wood element. 

In Traditional Chinese medicine the Wood element controls the liver and gallbladder, influencing blood storage and flow, the eyes (including inner vision), tendons, muscle flexibility, and the emotions of anger and kindness. It has a spreading and flowing action.

A balanced wood element and liver create subtle and adaptable bodies and personalities. However, when unhealthy and out of balance we suffer stiff joints, inflexible attitudes, stagnant ideas, irritability, and anger.

Although 2024 and 2025 are both wood years, the wood quality is different. The dragon was a Yang Wood year, a powerful active force while the snake in 2025 is a Yin Wood year, a subtle receptive influence.

🐲 Wood Dragon Year 2024 

In Chinese astrology, the dragon is the most potent astrological sign. It is unique because it is the only sign, not an earth animal.

Chinese culture reveres dragons so much that dragon years see a surge in births. Many parents wish their children to be blessed with dragon's luck, charisma, and power. The dragon is naturally yang: extraverted, bold, and more focused on impact than stability. Its natural domain is heaven, so it controls the cosmic realm (including the weather), exerting its influence far and wide.

In 2024, the dragon was clumsy because of the yang wood's youthful energy and powerful expression. It was a year of awkward, unpredictable, ever-expanding force. Think of a fast-growing teenage boy, not yet body-aware, more active than thoughtful. That was 2O24.

🐍 Wood Snake Year 2025 

Unlike the dragon, which thrives on external displays of strength and bold action, the snake masters its world through observation and precision. It strikes only when the moment is right. The snake is yin in nature. It is an earthly creature closely related to all things of the underworld: the unconscious, dreams, night, glamour, and secrets.

The uncoiled snake symbolizes kundalini's immense creative potential. It also symbolizes hidden power, mystery, intuitive perception, and wisdom. When the snake combines with the wood element (young green snake), it’s not nearly as scary as its more deadly siblings, for example, metal and fire snakes.

The energy of 2025 is youthful, bringing a paradox of the potential for renewal with the challenges of inexperience and restlessness. Just as wood fuels fire—symbolizing the energy of creation—it’s essential to channel your energy wisely this year. The lesson of the snake is to focus on refining efforts rather than rushing into things.

Since the snake is silent and hidden and embodies subterranean power, secret intent and spying are typical examples of snake energy. Though dormant, the snake is often wide awake, completely still, but poised to attack, especially when threatened. Politically, this means the rise of soft power, spying, and invisible warfare.

🩸Venom & 🌿 Cure

The snake possesses both poison and cure. In the correct dose, snake venom is medicine. Blood medications, pain management drugs, and specific cancer therapies currently use snake venom, and more applications are on the horizon—poor snakes.

But let’s look at poison-as-cure metaphorically. How you use this year’s energies will determine whether they harm or heal. 2025 is an ideal year for slowing down and perceiving the blessing in problems: struggle builds strength if we have the right mindset. Our wounds teach us valuable lessons, and so many losses we endure pave the way for creation. Our most harrowing experiences can yield positive outcomes when we reflect and discover their underlying truth.

Because 2025 is a yin year, the comic forces are resting, which means there’s a reprieve from heaven (the dragon is sleeping). The cosmic weather leaves more room for more self-determination and self-invention.

🐍 福 8 Ways to Create Good Fortune in the Year of the Wood Snake 

1. Slow down. Let go of the wood dragon’s urgency. Act with precision, not force. 
2. Look after your liver. Reduce alcohol, eat sprouts, green foods (natural), and bitter foods, such as a blend of warm water and mashed lime, which is appropriate for all Ayurvedic doshas.
3. Shed the old skin. Reflect on the habits, stories, and identities that no longer fit. Drop the unnecessary and simplify your life. The less baggage you carry, the more freedom you have to move.
4. Work behind the scenes. Refine your craft, your skills, and your deeper character.
5. Explore the hidden aspects of yourself. Since snakes represent the unconscious and self-reflection, this year is perfect for exploring your secret self, including negative motivations and dormant talents. Shadow work is ideal.
6. Aim for emotional balance. Actively work to understand your troublesome emotions. Whenever negative feelings like irritability, anger, and rage consume you, pause and look for the cure rather than rallying with the poison.
7. Balance solitude with connection. Snakes value privacy but beware of too much isolation, especially if you are naturally introspective.
8. Seeking love? Think of understated elegance with a touch of sparkle. Don’t reveal too much to potential partners. Maintain your mystery and build trust before you tell your deepest secrets.

A Year of Subtle Power

2024 asked us to leap. 2025 asks us to pause, feel into the present, and practice awareness. Pierce harmful illusions. Conserve your energy and only act when the time is right. This yin wood snake year is one of refinement, working with what already exists rather than seeking constant expansion.

Let your intuition lead! 💜