Old Skin. Snakes, horses, and myths we need to shed

I turn 31 this month. Apparently, that means it's time for some prescription-strength retinoids. They can cause a bit of peeling at first. But I've battled with my skin for years, so honestly? The idea of sloughing off my old one sounds fantastic.

According to Chinese astrology, last year's Year of the Snake has been inviting exactly this—the serpentine shedding of the old to make way for the new. Now, as we move into the lunar new year, the legendary Fire Horse awaits us.

Whether you believe in astrology or not, there's no denying that humans have always reached for symbols to mark time and make sense of change. And certain symbols become enduring archetypes. This is about those archetypes, and about the old beliefs—like old skins—that sometimes need to be shed.

Words: By Tara Boraine 

The Snake

Transformation. Rebirth. The snake is one of the most ancient mythological symbols, appearing across cultures from at least 3000 BCE. Its ability to shed its skin made it a powerful symbol of regeneration—of becoming new while remaining yourself.

But snakes carry a stranger wisdom too. Their venom can either kill or heal. Fun fact: Captopril, one of the first blockbuster blood-pressure drugs, was originally derived from Brazilian pit viper venom. What harms and what heals are often the same substance, differently dosed. This pharmakon principle—poison and medicine in one—appears to have been deeply inspired by snakes. The Greek god of medicine himself bears a serpent-entwined staff, and this Rod of Asclepius remains the symbol of Western medicine, still seen on the side of ambulances today. 

In our indigenous African spiritualities, snakes connect the living with the ancestors. The path of the healer—sangoma in Zulu, amagqira in Xhosa—often begins with dreams of snakes. This calling, indlozi, signals it's time to embark on ukuthwasa: the journey to be reborn. Just as the snake sheds its skin, the initiate must shed their former life, ego, and worldly attachments. The python becomes a healer's badge, showing they've crossed that threshold.

This journey of ukuthwasa offers a useful frame for any difficult passage: the loss of the old, as painful as it might be, undeniably makes way for the new.

The last year revealed to me some myths I need to stop perpetuating within myself. Old myths. Tired myths. Some I didn't even know I was still wearing.

Because beliefs are skins too. We grow into them young, and they fit for a while, and then one day they don't. The snake doesn't sentimentalise its old skin. When it no longer fits, it goes.

Here are four that I am shedding, as we move into this lunar new year:

The Myth of Separation

This is the pathological root myth from which others grow—the belief that things are fundamentally separate. Mind from body. Self from Other. Human from nature. Present from future.

We inherited this split from the Enlightenment, when reality was divided into mind and matter. The framing proved useful for a while – but somewhere along the line, we got confused, mistaking the map for the territory, and the lens for reality. 

The settler-colonial project ran with it. If humans are separate from nature, extract without consequence. If "civilised" people are separate from "primitive" ones, conquer without guilt. If the present is separate from the future, take now and let tomorrow sort itself out.

From separation, three more myths grew:

The Myth of the Machine

The belief that bodies, minds, and ecosystems are simplistic mechanical systems—reducible to parts, fixable by intervention, optimisable through engineering.

This really took off around the Industrial Revolution, when humans built machines and then started seeing everything as one. Bodies became components, and Time became a resource to optimise.

Much of modern medicine runs on this logic: specialise, diagnose, intervene. Find the broken part, fix it, and return to factory settings. This logic works brilliantly for acute problems—infections, injuries, things with clear causes.

But chronic illness broke that metaphor for me. Bodies aren't machines. They're more like gardens—complex, self-organising, responsive to context in nonlinear ways. The body, like the mind, is something you tend to, not engineer.

The Myth of More

The belief that more is always better—more consumption, more growth, more productivity. Your worth is measured by output. Rest must be earned. Enough is never enough.

The Protestant work ethic positioned productivity as holy and rest as suspect. Capitalism requires endless growth to function—a company that stops expanding is "failing." The colonial version: take now, replenish never. Consequences are someone else's problem.

We apply this logic to our own bodies. Borrow against future health. Push now, recover later. 

But as psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk says, the body keeps the score. It knows the difference between sustainable and extractive, even when the culture doesn't.

The alternative to more isn't less—it's enough. And enough is a real feeling. Given space to breathe, your body knows when it's full, rested, done. The More myth trains you to override those signals. Healing often means learning to trust them again.

The Myth of Total Control

The belief that sufficient willpower can override any obstacle. If you're struggling, you're not trying hard enough. Surrender is failure.

For many of us, control was survival. If your early world was chaotic or unsafe, you learned that vigilance kept you alive. Anticipate the threat. Manage every variable. Never let go.

The cruel underside: if you're struggling, it's your fault. The Control myth insists on individual responsibility while erasing every systemic force shaping our lives.

The Serenity Prayer, often read out in AA meetings, points to the alternative: "Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference."

Here's the paradox: letting go often creates more change than forcing. Sleep comes when you stop trying to sleep. Healing begins when you stop demanding it happen on schedule.

The snake doesn't force the shed. It waits until the new skin is ready underneath. Then it happens all on its own.  

Jumping on the Fire Horse

You may not control outcomes. But you can tend conditions.

While the Snake teaches the slow, private work of becoming lighter, the Fire Horse asks what you'll do with that lightness. It's not enough to shed your old skin. Now you have to move.

The Fire Horse (丙午, Bǐng Wǔ) is notoriously wild in Chinese astrology—associated with freedom, movement, power, vitality. While horses have often symbolised cavalry, conquest, control, and expansion, the Fire Horse refuses to be ridden easily. It carries its own will.

South Africa has no indigenous horses, but we do have zebras. Despite the best efforts of European colonists, they consistently proved too stubborn to domesticate. Our undomesticatable zebra makes a fine local metaphor for Fire Horse energy: wild, free, refusing to carry anyone's empire.

As we slither into 2026, things are certainly heating up. Climate, conflict, discourse, disease. One can almost hear the hooves. And it would be easy—so easy—to respond to this moment with the old myths. To try to control what we can't control. To push harder, extract more, separate ourselves from consequences we'd rather not face.

But what if this is exactly when we need the wisdom of the Snake’s shed? The myths that got us here won't get us through. The machine logic that sees the planet as parts to optimise. The growth logic that treats limits as failures of imagination. The control logic that insists we can engineer our way out of anything if we just bite our tongues and try harder.

Fire consumes. But Fire also illuminates. It clears dead undergrowth so new things can grow. The Fire Horse doesn't ask you to have a plan for everything. It asks if you're light enough to move when movement is called for—and honest enough to see what's actually in front of you.

I don't know if I'm ready for what the rest of 2026 holds. But I know I'm lighter than I was.

So now I turn the question to you, dear reader: What are you still carrying that the Snake has asked you to drop? And when the wild Horse appears—when the moment demands movement—will you be light enough to ride?