Happy New Year!

A Happy New Year to you!  It’s the end of a year and the end of a decade.  All of the planets are direct (no retrograde planets – not even Mercury!) It’s the end of a Lunar cycle as the moon is in the last quarter and is waning. This is a good time to be very still and become clear about what you want to release , let go of, weed out of your life.  This is also a time to ask yourself what you want to take with you into the next year and the next decade.

The ceremony I do tonight calls up my gratitude and joy for the lessons learned in 2010, honors all the pieces and parts I am leaving in the old year and then I write them on a piece of paper which I burn (safely). The smoke carries them into the past.

Now I write what I want to acknowledge, receive, explore, and create in the new year – a manifestation list. I write it in my journal so that I can look at it and read it during the year. I also throw very tiny pinches of sacred herb into a flame as I read each item out loud. This smoke carries my words into the future.

Next  I light a new candle and I do a reading for the New Year: with Runes, Medicine Cards, and/or Sacred Path Cards. Any Personal Oracle will do in whatever combination works for you: I Ching, tea leaves, Angel Cards, etc.

This is another way to bring in the New Year…and it deepens the New Years Eve experience into something that contains a lot of personal awareness. When no time is taken for self examination, course corrections, and allowing beliefs to change, we are in ‘default’ mode. That means the same-old-same-old on into the future. That is going to become very uncomfortable from now on! Right now rapid change is inevitable so we might as well go with it and surrender as fast as possible.

Calling in what you want in the New Year has two parts this year. Right after mid-night (or first thing in the morning of January 1st if you go to bed early) I read my manifestation list; then again 12 hours after the first new moon (night of Tuesday January 4th or the morning of  Wednesday January 5th).  Remember to say the list out loud and breathe after each item.

As you know, when steering something you are constantly making corrections with the steering wheel or tiller. Remember to do the same with your life’s journey. Steer it to avoid the potholes, the speed bumps, and that cliff up ahead! Keep your eyes on both the destination and the moment. Change only happens in this moment so make very good use of it. That’s what will finally deliver you to your destination, or not!

So Happy New Year! Remember that all is sacred. Here is a poem sent to me by a very dear friend and I want to share it with you. It is from the book I Send a Voice, by Evelyn Eaton, 1978:

Great Spirit,
Whose voice we hear in the winds,
Whose breath gives life to the world,
we would restore what greed
has taken from the Earth.

Great Spirit,
we are blind and deaf,
Open your eyes to us
that we may see.
open your ears in us
that we may hear compassion
open your compassion in us
that we may have compassion
upon the Earth.
upon our Mother Earth.

Great Spirit,
may our feet walk gently,
may our hands respect her,
may we learn the lessons
in every leaf and rock,
may our strength restore her.

Great Spirit,
When we face the sunset
when we come singing
the last song, may it be
without shame, singing
‘it is finished in beauty,
it is finished in beauty!’

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