Xin nian kuai le

The view of the new year today: wet, but bright and full of promise. For one, I hope the dragon brings me continued focus on the book, and the will and words to power through the last two-thirds.

Thanks to Yao Xiao Long for the fine characters.

Here's the text of the card I printed this year, from C.A.S. Williams's Outlines of Chinese Symbolism and Art Motives (Tuttle Co., 1941):

"The Eastern dragon is not the gruesome monster of mediaeval imagination, but the genius of strength and goodness. He is the spirit of change, therefore of life itself. ... Hidden in the caverns of inaccessible mountains, or coiled in the unfathomed depth of the sea, he awaits the time when he slowly rouses himself into activity. He unfolds himself in the storm clouds; he washes his mane in the blackness of the seething whirlpools. His claws are in the fork of lightning, his scales begin to glisten in the bark of the rain-swept pine trees. His voice is heard in the hurricane, which, scattering the withered leaves of the forest, quickens a new spring."

Happy dragon!