2017 | The Year of the Yin Red Fire Chicken

Kung Hei Fat Choi! Happy Chinese New Year 2017 to everyone from wonder | wander | women!

Being part Chinese and mostly Asian, we celebrate Chinese New Year with lots of fanfare and food.

Last year was the year of the Fire Monkey and many of us were tested and challenged by the naughty antics of this wily creature.

The year of the Yin Red Fire Rooster is the Year of Money, symbolized by seven Chinese characteristics of punctuality and prosperity.

travel, transits, transitions

As millions of families worldwide prepared to celebrate for one of the year’s biggest festivals wander | wander | women had our bags packed to head back to the Philippines after being away for some years. 

Chinese New Year 2023 falls on Sunday, 22nd of January 2023. Although celebrations last up to 16 days, only the first seven are considered a public holiday (January 22 to January 29). Culminating with the Lantern Festival on the 5th of February. 

travelling in style

This lunar new year marks the beginning of the Year of the Rabbit according to the Chinese zodiac, which assigns different animals to years over a 12-year cycle. 

festive fierce female | Year of the Boar

2019 is the Chinese Year of the Female Brown Earth Pig. In celebration of the new year and in anticipation of Google+ disappearing in April, wonder | wander | women is now on Medium.com. 

Chinese Food for Good Luck 

The Lunar New Year starts from February 5th, 2019 and ends on January 24th, 2020. 

Happy Chinese New Year!

See what this lunar year of the boar has in store when it comes to love, wealth, health, and happiness. 

eyes on our skies

It seems that life is so accelerated everything is multiplied or inundates us in multiple events.

Orion Nebula M 42 Celestron C 14

Feb 15 is no different. We will be treated to three celestial events. 

The new moon. A partial solar eclipse. 

It is also the start of the Chinese New Year of the Brown Earth Dog. 

mixed blessings

wonder |wander | women are always eager and excited to honor and celebrate a variety of diverse occasions, traditions or beliefs.

Back home on Negros Island

We were born and raised in a mixed household. Filipino by birth nationality. Spanish on our grand/father's side. Chinese on our grand/mother's side. Benedictine Catholic in education. Taoist in practical application.

East Coast, United States

Now that we have relocated to the western hemisphere we added the celebration of Jewish holidays as well. We are all too happy to be celebrating the new year three times each year now - on January 1, on Chinese New Year and on Rosh Hashanah.

London, United Kingdom

Celebrating the Year of the Fire Monkey!

London is pulling out all stops this Chinese New Year! Outside Asia, London hosts the biggest annual Chinese New Year celebrations.

Images from Chiswick House & Gardens, via Time Out

The Magical Lantern Festival premieres at Chiswick House and Gardens this year, and is open until March 5th. This is the first time the festival has appeared in the UK.

2022 Feb 02

2022 is the Year of the Black Yang Water Tiger. Tiger year is quite the contrast after the plodding, nose-to-the-grindstone energy of the metal Ox of 2021.

pixabay.com

Tiger energy is dual in nature - the excitement, clash, dramatic highs paired against swan-dive lows. All set amidst periods of absolute stillness as the Tiger waits for its prey to drop their guard.

#LivingWithInk | culture & identity

This week we are still celebrating the Lunar New Year of the Ox which started on February 12. Born and raised in the East and now living in the West, wonder | wander | women shine the spotlight on another Asian event as we continue to take you on yet another virtual tour. 

A Pair of Horses - Xu Beihong, Asian Civilisations Museum

Living with Ink: The Collection of Dr Tan Tsze Chor at the Asian Civilisations Museum presents highlights from the collection of Singapore's renowned art collector Dr Tan Tsze Chor. 

spring around the world

It's nearly April 1st! The flowers are growing, the trees are in various stages of bud, and the clock has flipped forward so we can have more hours of daylight...to work. We suspect it's actually so that people who have to attend work can end early and have a spare hour or two to gather their share of Vitamin D.

heart finds, soul food

It's been so long since wonder | wander | women were back on our native island. We have truly adopted and been adopted by our new homes abroad, so it's taking us a while to relearn island living.

There's one thing that never fails to make us feel at home. Food, of course! Ilonggo (or Hiligaynon) food is distinctive from other regions of the Philippines. Each province has its own native flavours.

Mooncake Festival : Asia's Mid-Autumn Feast

In the Orient it is the moon that rules, with special occasions plotted on the lunar calendar. Thus the Mid-Autumn Festival falls on the fifteenth day of the eighth moon. For 2015 this translates to September 27 or 28 in the solar or western calendar.

An assortment of moon cakes laid out prettily.

An important part of the festival celebration is moon worship.

The Mid-Autumn Festival is also known as the Mooncake Festival. For millions of Chinese across Asia and around the world the Mid-Autumn Festival is a big deal and second only to Chinese Lunar New Year celebrations. 

Houyi helplessly looking at his wife Chang'e 

flying off to the moon after she drank the elixir.

Imbolc. Full Leo Snow Moon. Brigid.

For the Triple Goddess - Maiden, Mother, Crone - alive in every cycle of becoming. 

A celebration of returning light, Imbolc is a Gaelic festival that marks the beginning of spring. Also called Candlemas (Christian), New Year (Tibetan, Chinese, Iroquois), Tu Bi-Shevat (Jewish). 

maiden, mother, crone painting by Beryl Noyce

Goddess festival of Brigit, Brighid, Brigid (Celtic). It is our mid-winter celebration, prophecy, purification, initiation. Imbolc reminds us that even in the coldest season, the fire has already begun.

on top of the world

Because my sister thought I was turning 60 we ended up booking my birthday dinner at Asiate - Mandarin Hotel's fine dining flagship restaurant in New York City - overlooking Central Park and Columbus Circle.

At times a mistake turns out to be the very best thing!

Imbolc

A celebration of returning light, Imbolc is a Gaelic festival that marks the beginning of spring. Also called Candlemas (Christian), New Year (Tibetan, Chinese, Iroquois), Tu Bi-Shevat (Jewish). Goddess festival of Brigit, Brighid, Brigid (Celtic). It is our mid-winter celebration, prophecy, purification, initiation.

Our Lady of 10,000 Names, Suzanne Grace Mitchell, 2018

Breathe into emptiness.

Stir in the silence that winter gifted you. Touch new skin, the surprise aliveness, the contours winter revealed. There is an echoing silence that precedes every new thing. 

Imbolc is the insistence of the spring waters, pushing up through cold earth.

It is the restlessness of birdsong, the persistence of the sap. It is the dark that folds around all that is stirring, saying: Pace yourself, love. 

Imbolc calls us to be simple. 

We have nothing but what winter left us. We have nothing but our own stirring heartbeats and desires. Nothing but the fire in our bellies that warmed us through the deepest darks. 

It is time to polish ourselves.

To clear, clean, hone. To stand in the barest simplicity of our aliveness and promise ourselves to service, to spring. 

Make a simple promise.

To our wholeness, to becoming. Find the seed inside you, swollen with its own longing, that insists, with all the force of life, that it will sprout when the time is right. Simple, naked, clean, fiercely alive. 

~ Maeanna Welti © Mother Tongue Ink 2020

Brigid's cross

waiting for spring

wonder | wander | women's word for the year so far is "deluge". Between grey or freezing weather, natural disasters, and the man-made disasters of our collective governments, the year has barely started and it already feels like we're being swept away.

Kalachuchi (Frangipani) in ballpoint and watercolour

NYC: my corner of the sky

We took three days in New York City as, no matter how easy it is living close by, there's nothing that beats falling asleep and waking up in the city that goes on and on and on. . . .We loved most taking full advantage of some of the best theatres and museums in the world.