Here is a note From Hanshi Platt for the upcoming year.
I trust that it will be an excellent year for all of us.
Water covers about 75% of our planet. Our bodies are about 70% water. Our brains are made up of 75% water. We simply cannot live without it.
In Chines!e element theory, water produces wood, which signifies growth and is the natural element of the Dragon.
Dragons are one of the most powerful and revered symbols in Feng Shui that symbolize power and in Chinese culture the Dragon represents strength.
So the dragon represents Power, strength, righteousness, and the spirit of change and transformation with success and prosperity.
The dragon governs east/southeast,
wealth accumulation and
the hours of 7 a.m. – 9 a.m.
They are Associated with thunder, lightning and arousal,
the Water Dragon personifies creativity at its best.
In 2012 the Yang Water Dragon Year starts January 23, 2012 and ends February 9, 2013.
It brings many possibilities for good fortune.
Water Dragons occur every 60 years, the last was in 1952.
The next Water Dragon year will be 2072.
January 2012: The year of transformation
The upcoming thirteen periods, (Lunar Months), are a real opportunity for anyone who is serious about making real positive change in ones’ life to really make it happen. The energy alignment taking place is conducive to making such an effort.
Ones own resolution to succeed is more important than any other one thing.
To believe,
is to become what you believe.
This is the year of self-mastery if one chooses to face the challenge.
What is required is an empty mind and an open heart where one loses the ego and the manufactured personality that one presents to the world and instead looks deep into the true nature of ones’ self.
This is where the real shift is taking place on the quantum level.
Still waters run deep and one needs to seek the silence through meditation and training.
Remember speaking comes by nature,
silence through understanding.
Knowledge is just a pile of information,
whereas wisdom developed trough a cultivated spirit and an elevated consciousness makes one aware of how one should apply that knowledge.
When learning the martial arts and as a student of the art one must listen and learn before talking and teaching.
The highest purpose of intellectual cultivation is to give ones’ self greater insight into ones’ true nature through self-mastery.
This you cannot do for someone else; one must choose if this is what one wants.
In a dojo, as in life, one must yearn to learn to then earn the level one is working towards.
This is a martial virtue and law of life, like a right of passage.
We must make the choice then go after it, then what we seek will seek us.
In the end, as in the beginning, one is seeking wisdom not knowledge; becoming a seeker not a follower.
A deep insight into ones’ true nature takes time and patience, but through self-mastery any level can be achieved.
Programming the mind and projecting positive emotions is really important this year.
How your inner focus affects your outer world. Altering ones consciousness through creating an awareness of ones true nature.
This is the way of budo.
Victory of Light 