2022: Year of the Tiger

The “Lunar New Year” on 1 February 2022, moving into spring season in the Northern Hemisphere, marks the beginning of the Year of the Tiger. The tiger is a symbol of strength, braveness, and the banishment of all evils. It is celebrated in Asia with children wearing hats or shoes with a tiger image for good luck.

Previous Tiger Years were 2010, 1998, 1986, 1974, 1962, 1950, 1938, 1926, 1914, and, 1902.

I’m celebrating by wearing a tiger’s eye gemstone bracelet and with my tiger night light – which reminds me of British poet William Blake’s 1794 poem, The Tyger, that begins:.

Tyger Tyger, burning bright,

In the forests of the night;

What immortal hand or eye,

Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

Artist: Eugene Delacroix, A Young Tiger Playing with its Mother (1830), The Louvre, Paris

MARTINA NICOLLS

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MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of: The Paris Residences of James Joyce (2020), Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

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