gracie7

Dear Ones -

You did it, everyone. You did a whole year!
Whether it was a great year for you or a painful year — you did it.
You got here.
You made it.
We made it.
Whether you feel like taking a victory lap right now, or just lying down in a darkened room with a cool washcloth over your eyes — you did it.
Time to close the book.

Please try to take some time today to reflect. Give yourself some silence in which to figure out what you need to put behind you now, and what you are ready to welcome in for 2016. Don't be afraid to make up a ceremony around this, or to invent a small ritual.
May I suggest writing things down, and either burning them or burying them, or bringing them to water?

I always do this on New Year's Eve. I write down what I want to shed from the old year, and what I want to welcome into the new year. Then I burn or submerge the paper in water, and let it go.

This is a day to return to the elements — fire, water, earth — and to set yourself free from what was, while opening your heart wide to what is to come. It's worth the trouble to invent a little ceremony at this moment of transition, because it's a big moment.

I have always loved New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. Even though our sense of time is arbitrary and human, it still means something. I love the feeling I always get on New Year's Eve that I am lucky — that the universe has been generous to me, to have let me stick around for another year, and to erase the slate and give me another chance.

Tomorrow I will be gifted with a brand new year — with no mistakes in it yet, and no heartbreaks yet, and no failures yet, in which to try again. Amazing.

You will be gifted with this, too. A clean and empty book awaits us all. Maybe we will be able to write things differently this time. Maybe a bit better. Maybe we will be wiser this time. At least we get to try.
We have all been given a fresh chance.

Let's close the old book, and open a new one.

Here we go, and blessings for 2016, and — now more than ever — ONWARD.