Forwards Now: A Fire Horse Invocation

The lunar year of the Fire Horse–an invitation to unleash wild energy, burn old selves and shadows, and ignite new paths.

I look the horse square in one fiery eye.
Right eye to right eye.

It’s a reckoning.

He’s wild.
A bushfire-fueled brumby.
A surge of primal energy.

There’s a pause of pure stillness.

His stare is an invitation.
A call.

A squally wind whips in.
It heralds the new.
Fans the fire.

The Fire Horse’s mane flies like molten ribbons.
With a wild toss of the head, he beckons:
Gird your loins. It’s time.

He heads up the golden chariot.
The Fire Horse side-by-side with Pegasus,
the white winged-horse bringing raw power and divine inspiration to the blaze.

It’s a cosmic pairing of flame and wing.
One igniting the path,
the other revealing it.

The Fire Horse paws the ground
like he is striking a match.
Sparks rise and twist.

I look back.
I see my past charred and scorched,
razed to a desolate ground.

The coiled wood snakes of yesterday’s moons unravel,
shedding skin and old patterns.
Submitting to the fire-bringing hooves,
they vanish into smoke.

Shadows, mine and inherited.
The smoky wisps carry whispers
of old selves,
ancestral burdens,
karmic loops.

Embers dance,
illuminating the lessons salvaged and retrieved.
A self refined in fire.

I rise, phoenix from ashes.

The old is eclipsed.
The sun a ring of fire around a bold moon.
The moon ablaze.

This powerful sun-moon lights the way.

The Year of the Wood Snake ends.
The Year of the Fire Horse begins.

The Fire Horse sounds the chariot trumpet.
His full-fledged neigh pierces the smoke.
It clears the path ahead.

The fire in my belly ignites and grows.

I launch atop the golden chariot.
Seize the reins
as the Fire Horse rears,
indomitable,
indignant at anything that binds or tethers.

The chariot surges forward,
an insistent wind at our heels.

Hooves flash
red,
orange,
gold,
blinding white.

I lean into the velocity.
Heat licks my arms.
Adrenaline spikes,
wild,
unrestrained.

The air hums with release.

Every heartbeat
matches the thunder of hooves
pounding against the fabric of the old year.

I feel the pulse of possibility
thrum in every fiber.

The Moon bends low.
Stars scatter
in the wake of our cosmic blaze.

Each spark a promise.
Each ember a choice.

The world behind smolders.
A map of what was.
Fertile ashes
for what will be.

The chariot races across constellations.
Weaves through celestial light.
Carries the old
and transforms it into new fire.

Pegasus beats her wings,
slicing through night and shadow.

The Fire Horse blazes,
a living flare against the night.

We hurtle into a horizon
blazing with possibility.

Forwards now.