Wishing you a Soaring High Dragon, Prosperous & Happy Chinese New Year, 60 years cycle Ganzhi or Samvatsara Chakra - Celebrating Diversity

During the Shang Dynasty, 1600 BC,?sacrifices were made to gods & ancestors. By Zhou Dynasty, 1046 BC, ancestor worship became a practice. During Han Dynasty, 202 BC, the Chinese New Year date was fixed, ie the lunar?rising of the 2nd new moon after the winter solstice. By the end of the Han dynasty CNY had become a social & entertainment festival.

China's economic prosperity during the Tang, Song and Qing?dynasties caused this to be a Spring Festival. Setting off firecrackers, visiting relatives and friends, and eating dumplings became important parts of the celebration.?

After the 1911 revolution, the Republic government abolished CNY and the lunar calendar, and adopted 1 January as the official start of the new year.?

After 1949 the CCP reinstated CNY as the Spring Festival and listed it as a nationwide public holiday.

Sexagenary cycle?or?ganzhi?is a cycle of 60 terms, each corresponding to 1 year, thus a total of 60 years for 1 cycle, historically used for recording time in China and east Asian countries Japan, Korea and Vietnam.

It still has a role in Chinese astrology just?like the 60 year cycle in the Hindu calendar, where Samvatsara in Indian calendars is the time?Jupiter transits from 1 Hindu zodiac?to the next. 1 orbit of Jupiter through all the 12 zodiac signs ~12 solar years. Five such orbits of Jupiter, 12 x 5 = ~60 samvatsara, making a?samvatsara chakra.

The 60 samvatsara cycle is based on the relative positions of Jupiter and Saturn in the sky.?The orbital periods of Jupiter and Saturn are approximately 12 and 30 solar years respectively. The lowest common multiple for both is ~60 solar years. Every 60 years, both planets will be positioned at nearly the same sidereal coordinates where they started off sixty years before, thus forming a sixty year cycle.

Flying & fire breathing Dragon?

Of all the Chinese Zodiac animals the dragon is touted as mythical. Is it mythical?

Does the Sungazer lizard above not look like a Dragon?

The Draco lizards with wings, found in Singapore and Asia, allow them to glide, "fly".

These lizards ribs and connected membranes extend to create "wings". The flap on the neck act as horizontal stabilizers.

Are these flying lizards modern day versions of ancient flying dragons.

7% of human fart is methane. Human released it in the rear but we know that goats, sheep, cows, buffalo and camels burp. That these burps contain methane which are combustible. As such it is not unimaginable for pre-historic flying dinosaurs to burp methane and cause ignition by creating a spark by grinding their teeth. Bombardier beetles spray boiling hot fluid to ward off predators.

Pterosaur in Australia and ichthyyosaur?in England recently uncovered the skeleton of a reptile?predator colloquially called a sea dragon. The ichthyosaur?fossil measured over 32 feet with a 6-foot skull weighing 1 ton.

By the Tang Dynasty the winged yellow dragon had become a wingless yellow dragon.

Look hard enough and we'll find a cross between an ichthyosaur and a pterosaur, i.e. the flying sea dragon, perhaps which breathed fire to usher in this Dragon Lunar New Year in 2024.

Wishing you a High Soaring Dragon, Prosperous & Happy Chinese New Year