Saddle Up - It's The Year of the Fire Horse.
- Jan 21
- 5 min read
What Does This Mean For Us?
Let's unpack the upcoming Fire Horse year to see how it might impact us Individually and collectively.
The year of the snake is nearly up and it asked us to shed, shed, shed.
Layers. Stories. Identities. Behaviours. Have you noticed? Are you still bang in it? Or did it pass you by?
I love that the Chinese Zodiac and 5 element system is getting some love nowadays. For those that don't know, it's when a zodiac animal combines with an element and creates a specific energetic flavour and it only appears once every 60 years.
From 17 February 2026, we enter the Year of the Fire Horse. The Horse is one of the 12 zodiac animals. Fire is one of the five elements (Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, Water).
The last Fire Horse year was 1966. (UK football fans unite). It's rare - and intense.
I've done some digging and tapped in to what my feels are around this beautiful animal and what this year could mean for us curious humans. If you are anything like me, dedicated to self-growth, then stick with me.
I got two words when I started dreaming about the horse. Acceleration & exposure. What has been overridden, suppressed, or tolerated for too long will most probably begin to surface and there will be collective refusal to keep living unconsciously - body mind, and soul.
I’ll leave the predictions to the astrologers, my feels are merely intuitive, but it's the patterns that repeat across biology, history, and culture I am also interested in, because I believe nothing here is random.
It's cyclical.
Rhythm Used To Be The Centre Of Everything
For most of our human history, life followed light and seasons adjusted and affected that life as intended. Our bodies were information, and life was responsive.
Sadly, systems changed faster than our bodies could adapt. Time became measured by clocks instead of daylight. Output mattered more than recovery. Manmade schedules replaced seasonal ones and people were expected to function consistently, regardless of how we felt or how old we were.
Our bodies know. Our minds do too, if we give them half a chance to catch up. Our souls have always known. We are merely remembering.
We’ve prioritised survival over restoration and short-term coping over long-term wellbeing for too long. We’ve normalised what we know. Passed it down to our kids and lived our lives as we thought we should. We are permanently tired, overstimulated and disconnected because we have been living inside systems that reward the opposite of what we need.
Hoorah! The Fire Horse year brings this back into focus so there will be much heat on this. For those just starting to feel it, it may feel uncomfortable before, it feels liberating. Discomfort is often the first sign that our survival mode is no longer required. It's icky, difficult and utterly discombombulating. But you're not alone.
The Horse Is Our Wonderful Teacher
When I think of a horse, I think of movement, independence, and physical vitality. I think about how its' instinct overrides overthinking and how it hates and resists confinement of any kind. These incredible animals don’t operate linearly. They move in bursts, then stillness and respond to their environment. They know when to run and when to stop. Their fierce inner knowing is quiet and understated.
They thrive when they have purpose and space, and when motion feels self-directed rather than imposed. At their very best, they are confident, animated, and alive to possibility.
At their worst (their shadow) they become restless, scattered, and exhausted, burning energy without direction. They don't cope well inside rigid systems, micromanagement, or environments that deny natural rhythms. I relate to that big time. I've never coped well under a finger point - and so perhaps there will be more of us courageous ones, breaking free from the unecessary comfinements in our lives.
Where freedom has been restricted and endurance has been mistaken for alignment, we will no doubt suffer.
We are watching systems fail every day. Everything is changing around us. Authorities, how we consume and what we buy, what we value and what we believed in, information and what we have been told…etc. It's like the world has been turned upside down.
We are watching the beginnings of a period in time where there is nowhere left to hide. Truths are being exposed and we are being dismantled from the inside out. Choosing what side of the fence we’re on is vital.
Do we care, or not? Are we going to live more consciously, or not?
It's not about collapse anymore. This is a transition story. We're in a unique threshold.
Structures built on dictatorships, extraction, suppression, uniformity and ego have already began to lose their grip because our participation is quietly dropping off. We don't want to have anything to do with that anymore. We have found our voices and old ways of working are changing, from the nervous system out.
What once felt normal now feels costly.
Let me clarify, “structures,” I mean the everyday systems that organise how we are expected to live and work. Fixed productivity models, clock-led schedules, economic pressures that reward constant output, and social expectations that prioritise compliance and performance over basic human limits. These systems lose power and weaken when we withdraw our energy.
Good to know for those that wish they were on the front line but can't be. We can change shit, by disengaging, scaling back, opting out, or simply no longer offering our full life-force energy to something that demands too much of us. We're not being picky - we're being authentic and discernment is our currency.
Big stuff.
The ‘Fire’ in the horse aspect intensifies all of this. Fire spreads fast and causes major consequences. It accelerates what it touches, and when paired with the Horse, this creates a powerful drive towards autonomy and authenticity, along with a short lifespan for outdated rules or false authority.
What is unstable will burn out fast and we will see this play out globally over the coming year. But it starts with us.
What is aligned and has gathered momentum. in your life?
Where have you been living on borrowed energy?
Where have you mistaken endurance for alignment?
Where have you adapted so well that you forgot the original cost?
Look after yourselves
This Fire Horse year may feel chaotic without good grounding, so take heed. Pace yourself, this isn’t a sprint, it’s a canter. (Ahem)
Do what you need to do to feel safe and peaceful in your nervous system. Sleep, rest, walk, swim, run, meditate, breath, yoga, read...all of if and more. Factor in this time. You are the only one that can do this for you.
We must;
Remember how to listen.
Remember how to pace.
Remember that productivity divorced from our natural rhythm will lead to depletion.
What Does This Look Like in Daily Life?
I'm not saying we have to stop everything we are doing and burn our life down. I am talking about small, honest recalibrations.
Notice when your body resists a schedule and ask why.
Choose nourishment over optimisation.
Let rest be preventative rather than remedial.
Design work and relationships that can breathe around your natural cycles.
The Fire Horse rewards self-led structure, conscious thinking, clear boundaries, clean commitments and natural flow. It feels like this year will expose where we have been surviving rather than living and I’m excited about that.
The Monthly Metox for February is all about channelling the energy of the Fire Horse. Download it here.
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