Creating Your New Year Any Time Of The Year
revisiting the letting go ceremony that turned an old year to ashes
Today’s post is in response to the New Year’s Day lesson in Beth Kempton’s 2023/24Winter Writing Sanctuary. The prompt was to write an essay about making space - emotionally, literally, or in whatever way the prompt speaks to you. And it should include some moment of transformation.
To be honest, my New Year started last September, 2023, when I decided to have a letting go ceremony to purge my toxic emotions from the previous year. It was extremely healing; I wrote about it here. So I decided today to use the same experience but write about it in a more “step by step” essay. I didn’t go back and reread what I’d written last September. Instead, I decided to write about it with a little more distance, recalling from memory the experience but from a less personal perspective. It was interesting to me to see how specifically I remembered each step, and why I chose to do each the way I did, and the relief I still feel recalling the process months later.
So here, in a very long, lightly edited post (sorry, this is part of my writing process through this course so you will see typos and probably a dozen ways this can be tightened up), is my guide to creating a new year, anytime of the year.
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Creating Your New Year Any Time Of The Year
Choose the date to begin your new year. The common calendar has no idea the number of days between your endings and beginnings, the clock clueless as to the hours and minutes needed for healing. But your heart has counted the beats, your lungs calculated the breaths, and when the time has come to begin anew, your soul will sound the alarm and you will be helpless to argue.
Begin by gathering your supplies:
scraps of paper; more scraps of paper than you think you'll need, times ten
a pen, pencil, or other preferred writing utensil
a metal bowl or other fireproof vessel
a candle
matches
a container of water suitable to extinguish your fire
optional: a rock, pine cone, leaf, acorn, stick, or other item from nature that brings you comfort
tissues
Find a quiet place to conduct your ceremony. Late at night, under a full moon works wonders but any place will do - a balcony in a bustling city, a suburban backyard, anywhere you can be alone, undisturbed.
If possible, put your bare feet on the earth or hold in your hand your item from nature. This will ground you as you begin. Take a few deep breaths.
Light the candle. Or candles. Use as many as you need to provide a comforting glow.
By candlelight, write on the scraps of paper all of the things you'd like to let go of from the previous 12 months, drawing the dividing line between who you were before you began the ceremony and who you are journeying to discover afterwards.
While it is normal to being by listing generalities - anger, procrastination, fear - eventually you'll get specific with your list. Name names, cite dates, bare secrets if you must - and at times you must if you really want to let them go - but remember that you cannot let go of someone else's behavior or beliefs. Only your response to them, only your own beliefs, the stories you tell yourself, the behaviors you need to forgive yourself for. Remember, no one will see this except you and the spirits that surround you with their Divine love as you embark on this ceremony. Even if you haven't invited them, they are there, caring for and protecting you.
When you are finished writing, randomly select a piece of paper from the pile. Read it - aloud if you are able, to yourself if that's easier - and call to mind everything about what's written that you need to release.
Fold or twist the paper and hold it to the candle's flame until it catches. Drop it into your bowl and watch it as it burns. Continue to do this for every piece of paper in the pile.
At some point you will draw a piece of paper and return it to the pile because you are not yet ready to let go of the words you've penned. That's OK. Just keep going, and when you have reached that last paper, the one that holds the words you're avoiding, give yourself some space to process.
Because by now you will have realized that with this ceremony you are actually going to have to let go of feelings you've been hoarding, poisonous comforts that have become unwitting friends, and the thought of releasing them back into the universe scares the shit out of you. Not because you're afraid the feelings will come back, but because you're afraid they won't.
Breathe. Sit for a moment. Remind yourself you are making space for whatever will come next.
You likely do not know what will come next.
The space left behind will tell you what it needs.
Tomorrow.
Today is about the letting go.
You will likely now find yourself wracked with emotion. Give yourself permission to cry, to be angry, to get up and walk around, to shout at the moon, to dance under the stars, to hug a tree, to pet a dog, to call a trusted friend who will walk this last part of the ceremony with you.
When you are ready, take the last paper...
...the one that has you frozen in place...
...and touch it to the candle flame...
...and turn that mother fucker to ash.
You may need to add another match to your bowl or stir the smoldering embers to ensure all burns completely. Stoke the fires as needed.
With the papers gone and the flame's glow fading, you may feel a wave of relief followed by a ripple of embarrassment, fearing that perhaps someone has witnessed your hours-long candlelit emotional purge. Who cares? Not you. Not anymore.
Inhale deeply, and blow out your candle.
Take the water and pour it into the bowl of ashes, making sure all of the cinders are extinguished. Leave the bowl outside, under the moon or stars or empty sky.
In the morning you will dispose of the ashes - buried in the garden, rinsed down a sink, washed down the driveway by a cleansing hosing, bagged and deposited into the trash. It doesn't matter where they go, as long as they are gone. Forever.
In the morning, you will begin the process of filling the space inside you with new intentions, hopes, dreams, the positive and nourishing things you will call to yourself on this side of the dividing line.
For now, for tonight, you will simply sit, and listen to your heart beat, and marvel at the capacity your lungs have for new breath.
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Happy new year, lovely humans. May today be the day you begin to let go of whatever you need to release back to the wild.
Much love,
Joanne
Thankyou for this. I am going to give it a go tomorrow!