MEDIUM RARE
Jullie Y. Daza
Judging by the crowds that packed the malls last Wednesday, a national holiday – or was it bonus day? – the people can’t wait for Dec. 24 to arrive soon enough.
Before we know it, it will be Dec. 31, the end of the year, the last page on the calendar on the wall; 2023 will be upon us in the blink of an eye.
The new year cannot come soon enough, if Dec. 1, 2022 was any indication. The countdown to Dec. 25, the lights, the magic, the traffic and the crush, the anticipation more delightful than time moving in real time.
Next year starting Jan. 28, the fearful and ferocious Tiger will be kicked out by a gentler Rabbit. If Chinese astrology lives up to its reputation – that the nature of the beast influences the character of the year named after it – bouncing Bunny should signify a “calm year.” That’s Patrick Fernandez talking, whose 8-to-5 job classifies him as a data analyst, not to mention his role as a banker and financial consultant in the US, where interest in feng shui has been growing.
“It could even be a Romantic Rabbit as we speak,” he said in his mother’s Yin and Yang shop, given how Westerners think of the rabbit as a cuddly type with prolific tendencies to produce little bunnies at the drop of a carrot.
Patrick has been busy collecting data from two wide-apart sources to prepare his clients for what to expect. He’s probably the only one who uses data on planetary configurations shared by NASA, as well as readings from an ephemeris published in Mandarin in Hong Kong months before every new year. An out-of-this-world combination, if you ask me, yet what’s so strange about the universe – emphasis on uni, one – and its so-called mysteries of unity, harmony, where everything is ruled by order and beauty, beauty and symmetry without chaos?
I leave it to Patrick, data analyst and banker by day, feng shui scholar by night, to explain the universality of earth and its (natural) laws. This much I was able to wheedle out of him. Water Rabbit has chosen to shine its prosperity star of wealth and treasure on the North.
To believe or not is up to you, but whyever not?