Year of the Snake: Celebrating Li Chun (立春) on 3 February 2025, 2227hrs

Two New Years, One Season

Most people are familiar with Lunar Chinese New Year — the fireworks, the red envelopes, the reunion tables that stretch long into the night. It is a celebration of family, of ancestry, of the turning of one lunar cycle into another. It is loud and warm and deeply loved, and rightly so.

But there is another beginning that arrives quietly alongside it, one that operates on a different calendar entirely and carries its own distinct significance. Lichun — 立春, literally "the standing of spring" — is the first of the 24 solar terms in the traditional Chinese calendar, a system built not on the cycles of the moon but on the position of the sun. In 2025, Lichun falls on February 3rd at 10:10pm, marking the precise astronomical moment when spring begins and, with it, the true start of the Year of the Snake.

Where Lunar New Year is a celebration — anchored in family, in honoring those who came before, in the warm human rituals of transition — Lichun is something quieter and more elemental. It is earth-centered. It is natural. It is the moment the planet itself tilts toward warmth, and many who observe it treat it with the seriousness that the actual beginning of a new cycle deserves. For those who practice Feng Shui, astrology, or simply hold a deep respect for the rhythms of the natural world, Lichun is not secondary to Chinese New Year. It is its own kind of sacred.

The Egg That Stands on Its Own

Of all the traditions associated with Lichun, the one that tends to draw the widest smiles — and the most genuine curiosity — is the practice of egg balancing.

The belief is this: on Lichun, if you attempt to balance a raw egg vertically on its tip, it will stand. Not wobble and fall, as you might expect, but genuinely stand — a small, oval miracle balancing on a surface that logic says should not hold it. The symbolism attached to this is rich. A balanced egg represents the harmony between human life and the natural world, the equilibrium of the seasons at the point of their turning. To balance the egg successfully on Lichun is said to invite good luck and prosperity into the year ahead.

The science, as it turns out, is more interesting than dismissive. Eggs can technically be balanced at any time of year with sufficient patience — the trick lies in finding the microscopic irregularities on the shell's surface that provide just enough grip. But around the spring equinox, when the sun sits directly above the equator and gravitational forces are distributed with unusual evenness across the globe, the conditions are genuinely more favorable. Lichun, while not precisely the equinox, shares enough of those properties that the tradition carries its own logic. Whether the egg stands because of physics or because of something less easily measured, the moment of balance — when it happens — feels like something worth marking.

Try it this year. Set the egg on a flat surface, breathe, and hold steady. The patience the practice requires is, perhaps, part of the point.

The Deposit That Opens the Year

In Singapore, Lichun carries a deeply practical tradition alongside the symbolic one: the auspicious deposit of money into a bank account. The principle is straightforward — what you invite in at the precise beginning of the year sets the energetic tone for what follows. Depositing money on Lichun is understood as an act of deliberate intention, a way of telling the universe, clearly and in the language of action, that you are open to abundance and ready to receive it.

The timing, as with most things in Feng Shui, matters considerably. Each of the twelve zodiac signs carries a different energy on Lichun, and the hours during which a deposit is most auspicious vary accordingly. Here are the ideal windows for 2025, organized by zodiac sign:

February 3, 11:00pm – February 4, 12:59am Rat, Dragon, Monkey

February 4, 1:00am – 2:59am Rat, Snake, Rooster

February 4, 3:00am – 4:59am Horse, Dog, Pig

February 4, 5:00am – 6:59am Goat, Dog, Pig

February 4, 7:00am – 8:59am Rat, Monkey, Rooster

February 4, 9:00am – 10:59am Ox, Monkey, Rooster

February 4, 1:00pm – 2:59pm Most auspicious window for all zodiacs except Rat, Ox, and Dog

February 4, 5:00pm – 7:59pm Ox, Dragon, Snake

(Source: Wayfengshui)

If your auspicious window falls in the small hours of the morning, take heart — most banks now offer transfers at any hour, and the gesture does not require a teller. The amount matters less than the intention behind it. What you are really depositing, in the most meaningful sense, is your willingness to welcome what the year has to offer.

Crystals and the Energy of a New Beginning

Lichun is also a natural moment to turn to the crystals you carry — to cleanse them, reset your intentions with them, and consider whether the stones accompanying you into the Year of the Snake are the ones that align with what you are moving toward.

The Snake year carries an energy of transformation, intuition, and deep inner wisdom. It rewards those who move thoughtfully rather than impulsively, who trust their instincts over the noise of external pressure, and who are willing to shed what no longer serves them in favor of something truer. These are not small asks. They are the work of a year — and the right crystal, worn with awareness, can hold you steady in that work long after the new year energy has settled into the ordinary rhythm of daily life.

Lichun is the threshold. What you bring with you across it matters.

Setting Intentions at the Turn of the Season

What strikes us most about Lichun, having observed it and written about it and watched the people around us mark it in their own quiet ways, is how much it asks of the inner life rather than the outer one. Chinese New Year is communal and celebratory — it turns outward, toward family, toward the table, toward the shared warmth of people who love each other. Lichun turns inward. It asks: what are you beginning? What are you releasing? What does this year mean to you, specifically, in the particular circumstances of your particular life?

The egg balancing, the bank deposit, the crystals set out for cleansing — these are all, in their different ways, acts of intention. Small, deliberate gestures that say: I am paying attention. I am not simply letting the year happen to me. I am meeting it.

That is, when you think about it, the most powerful thing any of us can do at the beginning of anything. Not to wait and see, but to show up — with intention, with clarity, and with a willingness to be shaped by what the season brings.