By Thomas K. Pendergast
Say "hello" to the Chinese Lunar New Year - the Black Water Dragon - and enjoy it while it lasts because it will not come around again for another 60 years.
There are a total of five cycles in Chinese astrology, with each cycle lasting 12 years. Each cycle is dominated by an element, so this year is the turn for the "water" variety of dragon.
Every individual animal-color-element combination only shows up once every 60 years.
"It's the Year of the Dragon. Every year has not only that animal that governs the year but an element, and the element is water for this year," said Erika Lam, a Richmond District resident and Feng Shui consultant with the interior design company Awaken Designs.
"I'm a dragon, a metal dragon, and my son, born 24 years later, is a fire dragon. So each dragon year is governed by a different element," Lam said.
"In Feng Shui there are five elements: fire, water, wood, metal and earth," she explained. "So, all those have their own colors, properties, shapes and forms that are associated with each of them. The colors that are associated with the water dragon would be blue or black, so some people call it the Black Water Dragon year."
Black and blue are colors that can easily be associated with a dragon in China because, unlike in the Western dragon myth, this creature comes not from the sky but from deep down in the ocean.
"Most important is that dragons are symbols of water, not fire. So dragons are associated with rivers, streams, oceans, lakes and the rain that comes every year," said Charles H. Egan, a professor who teaches classical Chinese literature, culture and poetry at San Francisco State University.
"I saw one source that talks about their claws being in the shape of lightening, but even in really early times there's always dragons. They're seen as these benevolent, although powerful creatures that keep life afloat. They are also seen as intermediaries between the mortal world and the heavenly world," Egan said.
"Dragons are heavenly creatures but they also have a real close relationship with the human world. … You see figures of dragons even back to Neolithic times," he added.
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