Jolly New Years Eve! Often, for me in this last decade, quiet and meditative New Years Eve. We are in the last hours of the year. I am privileged to spend this New Years Eve with my most long time and dear friend, Lois. Tonight, we celebrate the year’s last night, and then another whole year will be in the rear view mirror. I am very grateful that tomorrow I can feel like everything is new. Intellectually, I know that each day everything can be new - and sometimes the best thing in the world for your mind and heart is to seize upon that truth, on any given day. But we are linked to thousands and thousands of years of our ancestors who all celebrated the end of a year and the beginning of a new one, all for the same reasons we do now. They wanted to, we want to, wipe the slate clean and begin fresh. All new. And we can. Our environment can change, our inner landscape can change, our life can really be new - and that decision of ours, because it is definitely a decision, is given that energetic booster rocket of a brand new year beginning again all around us. Just for fun, I have gathered together some New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day traditions from around the world. In Scotland, there is a tradition called “First Footing”, where a handsome, dark-haired man goes from to door to door bringing in coal for the fire, food, coins, and whiskey, as it is thought that the first person who crosses your threshold right after the stroke of midnight brings the circumstances you will know all the new year through. In this case, prosperity, abundance, flavor, and good cheer. In exchange, the man is offered a drink of that whiskey to share in all the good fortune he brought by his offerings. In England, there is a tradition of putting two coins outside the front door on the threshold sometime in the evening, and after the stroke of midnight, the head of the house opens the door and brings in the money to assure prosperity is the first guest in the house for the New Year. In Spain, one wears red underwear on New Year’s Eve to assure good luck in the New Year, and at the stroke of midnight, one eats 12 grapes, one at each stroke, so that abundance will be assured in each month of the New Year. Probably want to have smaller grapes for that tradition! In Greece, one smashes a pomegranate just outside the doorway of ones home and spreads the red juice and seeds all over the threshold to bring fertility, prosperity, love, and happiness in the New Year. This hearkens back to the worship of the Goddess Persephone, whose symbol is the pomegranate, as Queen of the Underworld and the Goddess of Spring. A Germanic tradition is to touch the ashes of the hearth on New Year’s Eve, or to touch or kiss a chimney sweep on that night to bring one good luck. Cleaning and sweeping on New Year’s Eve in Japan is good luck, so that all the bad energies of the old year are swept out the doors in readiness for the New Year to arrive. But one must not do this activity on New Year’s Day, or all the new good fortune will be swept out of the house! Many cultures subscribe to the sweeping out the home tradition. In one, just before midnight, a person should sweep all around the house and finally open the back door sweeping everything old out the back door. Then just after midnight, throw open the front door to welcome in the New Year and the new good fortune it brings. And of course, there are many traditional foods. Here in the U.S., the eating of pork as a harbinger of good fortune is woven into many traditions. The pig was honored in this way because whereas the chicken scratches backward, the pig roots only forward in his search for food. Also, the pig represents abundance. Going along with that is the eating of leafy greens such as collards, kale, or cabbage, which all represent paper money. Additionally, in the south, black-eyed peas are popular to eat for good luck, as the number of them represent the number of coins which should be coming to one in the new year - the same principle of lots of seeds in the pomegranate. Consuming these things takes into one’s body all they represent and allows our very bodies to be imbued with those energies. The imbibing of spirits as a celebration of New Year’s Eve is as old as the invention of spirits, likely beer was the beginning. Ancient Egyptians drank to passing out to commemorate the Goddess Sekhmet being tricked into drinking red beer instead of human blood as She was on a destroying rampage. The red beer fooled Her, and She drank till She passed out and so the world was saved from complete destruction. There were designated drummers who did not drink that much who, after most of the people were passed out, were sent around to bang the drums loudly waking everyone and bringing them to ritual in the temple of Sekhmet. When I wasn’t performing on a New Year’s Eve, I liked to make it a quiet, thoughtful, ritualized night. I built a fire at sunset and had wood to keep the fire going till after midnight. I took a ritualized bath, with candles and herbs of cleansing and purifying in the water, usually a few drops of an essential oil added in the same vein - frankincense, lavender, cedar or sage. With every scooping of the water and pouring it over me, I envisioned the washing away of the old year and all of its effects on me that were in any way negative. I would then pour myself a glass of champagne, and taking a piece of paper and pen, I would write a list of all the things in my life I wanted to release from my life in order to start fresh in the New Year. After reading them aloud, I would burn them in the hearth fire. A brand new pristine white candle would be on the mantel with fruit around it, and coins. In the time before midnight, I would write a list of those things I really wanted to come in to my life for me in the new year. Then I would sit in front of the fire and meditate on them. In effect, open myself to receive them. Just after the stroke of midnight, I would light the candle on the mantel to welcome the New Year and call to me out loud all the things I wished for in the New Year. Then lighting the edge of the paper on the flame of the new candle, I gave it also into the hearth fire. Hope flames anew. Time for another glass of champagne! May all who read this have a grand and prosperous new 2015, with hope burning brightly in your hearts, and surrounded by Love Eternal, walk bravely into the next round of the Great Spiral. Brightest Blessings to All!
Posted on: Thu, 01 Jan 2015 03:51:04 +0000