Feb. 17, 2026, marks the beginning of the Chinese Lunar New Year — the Year of the Fire Horse (赤馬年). The Horse arrives seventh in the Chinese zodiac cycle, carrying with it the frenzied energy of freedom, the steadiness of perseverance, and the promise of forward momentum. This year, however, the Horse trots alongside Fire, one of five elements that cycle through the zodiac every 60 years. In Chinese tradition, Fire embodies passion that burns bright, ambition that refuses to dim, and transformation that remakes everything in its path, just as fire transforms anything it touches. When Fire meets Horse, the combination becomes incendiary.
Historically, Fire Horse years haven’t always been positively regarded. In Japan, many believed Fire Horse women would be too strong-willed, bringing bad luck to their families or dominating their husbands. This superstition was so strong that birth rates noticeably dropped during the 1966 Fire Horse year as families tried to avoid having daughters born under this sign, and deemed women born in 1966 as “bad luck,” and inherently threatening to the patriarchal order. Doomed from the start, women born in 1966’s Year of the Fire Horse were taught that they were cosmically bound to cursed lives.
What does it mean, then, that the independence and ambition promised for those women born under our most recent Year of the Fire Horse were considered a curse? Was the off chance of being born a woman with these characteristics seen as dangerous enough to prevent their birth entirely? Perhaps, the real “bad luck” wasn’t the influence of the double-yang Fire Horse woman herself, but what her presence interrogated within the role of femininity.
While it has been 60 years since the last Fire Horse cycle and subsequent aversion towards the birth of little girls, our fears surrounding the changing social roles of women remain eerily similar. The qualities promised under the Fire Horse — strongheaded, dominant, opinionated — are still the ones women are taught to avoid. Just as it was in 1966, female strength is seen as a threat, rather than a step towards genuine equality. Fire, in itself, does not usually create a positive association in the imagination. After all, we naturally associate fire with destruction. Yet, fire also has the unique quality to cleanse and begin anew. The Fire Horse is not a horseman of the apocalypse, but rather a bearer of clarity and an inability to be contained. The very qualities that cause the weak to fear the women of the Fire Horse are what yield her endless strength: she perseveres with optimism despite it all.
For 60 long years, the Fire Horse’s significance has been twisted to excuse ignorance and fear. Passion and intensity are dismissed as women being “too emotional,” particularly within the context of women’s suffering. Charismatic leadership is deemed “domineering” when women step into powerful roles, whether they be social, professional, or familial. Independence becomes synonymous with “difficult” when women refuse to shrink. The Year of the Fire Horse strips away these bad-faith assumptions and dares to call these qualities what they actually are: strength, power, and refusal to be contained or defined.
Society has long perpetuated fear towards the qualities of the Fire Horse, and in turn, it has conditioned women to accept these falsities as some eternal truth. This Lunar Year, I am calling on the unrelenting strength of the Fire Horse to guide my ways, whether or not the rest of the world is ready for it, and I invite you to do the same. Being strong-willed should never be deemed an insult for women. It is not just an important quality, but a necessary one; like a horse carrying a knight into battle, strong-willed women carry themselves into lives that serve them, refusing to stand down to anything less, persevering with grace.
It’s time to stop apologizing for not fitting in places that were never made to hold us in the first place. Instead, we ought to take influence from the “wicked” Fire Horse, and roam free from what no longer benefits our lives. The alleged “bad luck” of the Fire Horse is constructed and sustained by the patriarchal myth that women’s power is a threat to the natural order, but horses have never been known for standing down or stagnation. In fact, they are well-known to be a symbol of unrelenting perseverance and forward movement.
So this year, let us collectively refuse to be tamed. Not just for ourselves, but for the generations of women who come after us — so they never have to wonder if their strength and refusal to stand down in the face of adversity is a curse. We don’t need permission to take up space or feel too much or to think. The “bad luck” bestowed on us was never ours to carry. It belonged to systems that couldn’t hold us, to structures that crumbled when we refused to shrink.
On Feb. 17, 2026, the Fire Horse returns as a force to be reckoned with. The flame they believed would burn too hot and too wild is exactly the heat needed for transformation. Fire doesn’t just destroy; it clears the ground for new growth. It purifies. It illuminates what was hidden in the dark.
The Year of the Fire Horse comes once every 60 years, a rare alignment of element and animal, yang meeting yang. It’s an invitation written in the stars: to be unapologetically ourselves, to lead with the full force of our ambition, to transform everything we touch.
The fire was never meant to be contained. It was meant to light the way forward.