Gong Hey Fat Choy!  A most auspicious New Year to each and all.

I just saw the link to an International Business Times article on my friend Valerie’s facebook page.  She put this quote from the article in her post, “The Dragon is larger than life and its appearance means that big things are to come.”  Then she wrote, “I can get into that! :)”  Me, too!

So here I am 500 miles down the road in the Bay Area.  Given the grassroots nature of the journey, I’m waiting to hear about classes and community groups to speak with about 100 Voices – Americans Talk about Change.  Meanwhile, I did manage my first Tweet last night (I need all y’all to follow me!!) and I’m hearing today from folks in Texas, GA and WI for 100 Voices events there, so as the DIY publicity process goes…well…it’s going somewhere – “big things are to come.”

Here are the big things I pick – Americans listening to each other.  Yeah.  And I pick getting our democracy and our country back.

From the standpoint of traditions behind the Chinese calendar, the Dragon is a symbol of good fortune and intense power.  The Year of the Dragon comes around every 12 years and represents the culmination of first 11 years of the cycle.  In that cosmology, this 12^th year is the time of everything coming together in expression.  The expression can be flamboyant and emotional – like Lady GaGa or like Stephen Colbert at the opening of every show.  Excess are expected with lots of love and pain and passion.  Some of my Chinese American friends say this is the year where things explode into fruition.  Big visions can come to life, they say.

But there are cautions.   Flamboyance can be flimflam.  Emotionality can backfire.

It’s hard not to think of recent campaign slurs and shouting.  It’s also easy to remember the consistent theme among the 100 Voices calling for wise, visionary, cooperative leadership grounded in the interests of we-the-people.  Flamboyance and emotion in fulfilling that call would be very good.

My friends say, watch for unwise use of the power of the dragon – in others and in yourself.  At the same time they say, go for it.  If you’ve had something you’ve been nurturing into being, this is the year to implement.  This is the year to make it big and bright and real.

And, it’s the year that sets the pace for the next round of 12.

At the end of the article Valerie posted, Peter So is quoted regarding the year of the Dragon for the U.S.  “Sometimes luck depends on the country itself, rather than an individual president,” he said.

OK.  Let’s do it.