This year, Chinese New Year falls on 1st February and preparations for the celebration are already well under way.
I love learning about other cultures, and there is one tradition during Chinese New Year that speaks to me particularly: the ritual of “sweeping away the dust” of the old year.
This ritual involves house cleaning before the new year begins, ridding our spaces of the old and stale energy from the past. This could mean removing things that are no longer needed and take up space and energy in our homes, or wrapping up any unfinished business from the past that might weigh on us. In all cases, the point is to create space for good luck from the new year to come in and settle.
An ancient tradition (and one that I have written about before here) was to include in this “sweeping away of the dust” the burning of old calendars in order to release their powers back to the moon. It was a way of putting the past to rest and starting the new year afresh.
In Chinese culture, the idea of quite literally bringing our house in order at this time of year will be auspicious and have an impact on our fate for the new year to come. It affects the energy in our homes, and what our homes will attract. This in turn will affect our energy and what we will attract.
In Western culture we might equate this to a good spring clean!
For a personal account of how the ritual of Chinese house cleaning is carried out in practice, here is an interesting blog: https://www.apartmenttherapy.com/chinese-new-year-cleaning-tips-266626.
It might be exhausting just thinking about the extent of what this complete “sweeping away of the old year” might entail, but it can give us some ideas of what we might like to try for ourselves. And if it all feels overwhelming, get in touch!
A more comprehensive overview of the Chinese New Year festivities can be found here: https://www.chinahighlights.com/travelguide/festivals/chinese-new-year-celebration.htm.
Wishing you much good luck for the Year of the Tiger!