Ending a cycle

 New Years is a huge celebration for many people, and we use it to say good bye to the old year and welcome in the new.  But most of the focus is on the incoming year.  Maybe we set goals for the year, pick a word for the year or make some kind of resolution.  We rarely spend the same amount of time honoring the old year, recognizing what it has given us, what our struggles have been and saying good bye to it.

Part of a good transition is recognizing what we are letting go of, and by making a ritual of saying good bye to the old year and marking the end of the yearly cycle, we are giving ourselves a boundary between what we don't want to carry into the new year.  It is making a point of saying "this stuff was part of this year, but now we are staring a new year, so I don't need this to continue."

I have built up a pretty big practice of end of year reflection.  For me, it's a time to look back at the whole year, to remember the good times and the bad ones, to think about new people I have met, and remembering those who left us.  It's about finding closure and about seeing the year as a whole.  I enjoy journaling out thoughts about what I did well and what I struggled with.

Since we are saying good bye to a whole year, this is something that can easily be extended over several days, not something you need to do all at once on New Year's eve (especially if you have plans)!  And you don't have to come up with everything on your own (even though it is a pretty personal and private thing, at least for me).  There are a ton of great resources out there for journal and reflection questions.  

I definitely feel that reflecting on the year can be hugely rewarding.  What this looks like to you may be different from what it looks like to me.  You can find a tarot spread to work on, or some journal questions, or maybe even just spend some time thinking and reflecting (if you aren't a journaling person...doing this by a fire or looking out the window at snow is great!)

One thing I like doing is flipping through my planner (and journals...all the stuff I worked on during the year).  My planner has journal aspects to it, so there are daily/weekly/monthly reflections, there are memory pages, there are notes (for future projects as well as stuff I was working on at the time), so going through it is like a snapshot of my year, and it lets me reconnect with memories, which is always fun.  I almost always 'end' a planner with an end of year reflection, whether it is more formal or just me writing out whatever is on my mind.

Another personal ritual I do is that I create an anklet for the year, one that I wear always, and then on New Year's eve, I add next year's anklet (and wear both), and on New Year's day, I remove the old one (and offer it up in thanks).  I've been doing this for quite a few years now, and it definitely a big marker of the year ending for me.  It's funny, because I tend to swap legs each year, and when I add the new one, I'm very aware of it for weeks!

In the past few years, I've also added a Norse version of the 12 days of Xmas to my end of year celebrations.  So, for the last 12 days of the year, I honor a different concept, from my ancestors, light/dark, community, healing....it's a way to not only give thanks for the things that happened this year but also to build dreams for next year.

I've always loved advent type things, so having this extended ritual celebration at the end of the year gives me the structure I desire to count down the final days of the year.  Having done it a few days now, it's fun to build on what I've done before, to deepen my connection with each day and the deities and energies I associate with them.

I also find that the end of the year (for me) feels almost frantic.  There is this building of energy, the tail end of the holiday season (though I do tend to think of the holiday season as reaching almost to May, it's like the intensity changes with the New Year).  Taking a little time each day in those final days of the year helps me mark the turning and keep my balance, even in this somewhat liminal time (because the time from Xmas to New Year really often feels like it's 'extended holiday time' probably a holdover from winter school holidays that last for the last two weeks of the year in many places).

So whether you feel yourself floundering at the end of the year (like I did!) or you just want to explore your relationship with the year that is coming to a close, I highly recommend expanding your New Year's celebrations to include saying good bye to the old year in some fashion.  Have fun exploring the options and finding what works best for you!

Electric lights

 At Yule, we welcome back the light, and it's often a time for lighting candles.  And as much as I love me a good candle or twelve, sometimes the situation may not be right for an open flame.  Many people have romanticized candles, and they represent that something special is going on (whether it is ritual or romance LOL), while 'normal' electric lights feel more ordinary and don't bring that same sense of wonder.

But here's the thing....our ancestors didn't have special lights to bring out for rituals and celebrations, they used candles because that's what they had.  And even though we use electric lights for our daily life, there are so many variations on light we can still use electric lights for spiritual or special occasions...and have them different from the lights we use everyday to maintain the special feelings they evoke.

Especially at this time of year, when holiday lights are everywhere, the options are limitless.  You can find beautiful lights that suit your desires, and have something that will work for you (and everyone involved).

Now, I know some people have very conflicted emotions about holidays, so if certain lights trigger negative emotions in you, pass those over and find different ones!  And you don't have to limit yourself to holiday lights, you can work with a lava lamp or colored light bulbs.  There are fairy lights or LED lights, and of course you can put fancy shades around them (like you might put a tea light in a fancy candle holder to spice it up).

Light is such a basic thing, but it's really amazing how changing the light in a room changes the energy of it.  You can play with this, building up your collection of lights and figuring out which kind works best for you in which situations.  

And just because you are embracing electric light doesn't mean you can't also (or at different times) use candles!  This is about adding another tool to your toolbox, not necessarily replacing it (though of course if you can't ever use candles, this is a great alternative).  

One of the obvious advantages is that electric lights are much less of a fire hazard, which allows you to leave them 'burning' on altar spaces or what not.  Of course, you still want to make sure that you are taking the appropriate precautions, so make sure things are plugged in to a safe outlet, and that the heat of the lights won't ignite anything nearby, but they are definitely a safer choice if you have pets that like to investigate open flames.

One thing that takes a little bit to wrap your head around is how to 'dress' an electric light.  If I'm using candles for ritual, I do like to dress and charge them, sometimes I'll carve symbols or put some herbs in the wax.  Obviously, I can't really do these things to my electric lights, but you can still find ways to dress them up.  

Fancy tapes can be used to add flair, and you can use something like nail polish or a paint pen to draw symbols on the outside of things (like on the pole of a standing lamp, or the switch on the wall).  Or, you can make a tag to attach to your cord that you can write your intentions on.  You can likewise hang charms or bags (of herbs and stones) off of the switch (so that you can active them every time you switch the light on).  Just like when working with candles, you will want to make sure that any modifications you do don't make the lights unsafe!

I am all about feeling magical, and sometimes it's easy to overlook options, simply because we see them all the time, and so we tune them out.  But with a little twist, a bit of a different perspective and a new way of thinking, we can open up our options and end up with a whole new world of lighting to play around with.

So, whether holiday lights have always delighted you or if you are simply in need of a more practical solution for times when fire isn't the best idea, electric lights can be practical, versatile...and utterly magical!

Extremes help!

 It's a very common phenomenon for us humans to glorify whatever is 'not' going on right now.  In the winter, we miss summer, in the fall we miss the bright colors of spring.  And often it's the extremes that really get people feeling nostalgic for 'any other season' (or experience, or situation).  It's like we're programed to not be happy with what we have, but to look at it and only see what we don't have.

It's not necessarily a bad thing, to remember fondly other times and to appreciate that we know the cycle will turn around.  But if we focus only on what we don't have, we miss out on what is going on right now.

However, if we can flip the script, and remember the opposite extreme, perhaps calling to mind the sweltering heat (and humidity!) of summer...when we are in the middle of a snowstorm, we can start to temper those longing feelings, and instead of being unhappy about the storm, we can look for what makes it special...and what it helps us appreciate.

Feeling longing is a great time to turn to gratitude.  If we are longing for those warm spring nights, where everything is alive and growing, then we can take a moment to be grateful that we know the seasons will shift and spring will come and we will get to experience that.  We can even be thankful for whatever is going on right now that makes us feel the longing.

This can also be applied to tasks we may not enjoy so much.  If you are like me, you might struggle to work out.  Often, tasks we don't like are a form of an extreme, and working out is often a peak of effort...way more than we use in a typical moment.  But, intellectually we know that doing short bursts of activity like that can create a healthier body, and will make those moments of rest that much better.

You can even tap into this appreciation when the extreme is one you enjoy!  If you are having a lovely vacation, with no work to stress over or normal adulting tasks that you find tedious to do, and perhaps you find your mind drifting back to work or beginning to dread the return to work (and thus detracting from your good time), you can take a moment to shift your perspective and instead be grateful for this moment and recognize how it will allow you to return to your normal tasks feeling rested and content.

One thing that may be helpful to practice is holding both a like and dislike for a particular experience in your mind at the same time.  So maybe you have a social obligation (work thing, family thing, friend thing), and there are aspects of it you really don't care for (whether that is the people present, the topics that are to be discussed, or even the location and activities planned), but there are also parts you do enjoy (good food, specific people you enjoy being with, getting to dress up and go out).  

 

By holding both the good and the bad in your mind at the same time, you temper the good with the bad.  You can do the same for whatever you 'wish you could be doing instead', and maybe you'd rather stay in with a good book, but you realize that doing that will make your friend sad (which you don't want to happen) or that you'll miss out on office drama, or just a general feeling of missing out (because you never know if it will be THE party).  

 

With both the good and the bad of where you are and where you wish you could be, you begin to see that nothing is cut and dry, nothing is just good or just bad.  It may take you a little bit to figure out the benefits of the thing you aren't too fond of or the downside of the thing you wish you could do instead, but the more you practice it, the easier it comes.

 

And being able to bring all the factors to the table lets you not only realize that sometimes we put too much importance on one aspect (yes, it may be a work function, but it's also a paid trip and some good dining) and we often over play the alternative (sure, we could skip it and stay home and play video games, but then maybe we won't be as strongly considered for the promotion that we really want).

 

Life is complicated and messy and very few things are only good or bad.  If we practice using these extremes in our life to show us a more balanced way of thinking about our experiences, we may find that these 'extremes' aren't really so extreme after all.

Embracing community

 When I think about the holiday season (which for me is pretty much Halloween through Valentines day...which is coincidentally the cold and dark part of the year), I think about community.  I think about banding together with the people who live near us, the people we care most about, and the people who support us (family, friends and acquaintances).  

The image that often comes to my mind is being tucked in a warm house, with people I like, eating good food and just enjoying each other's company.  But I feel like this can be an outdated image, because many of the people I care about don't live near me.  And even though the details of the image don't line up, I still feel that this time of year we really turn to the people who make our lives meaningful, the community that we feel we belong to.

Now community can mean a lot of things, and I definitely feel that locality is only one of them.  Yes, I am part of my local community, in that I live in my town, shop at local stores and interact with people on the street.  But I am also part of the Pagan community (as a whole entity), as well as specific Pagan communities that I interact with.  I am also part of communities that bond over shared interests, shared life experiences and shared trauma.  

All of these communities make me who I am, they influence my daily life, and when I think of being lonely (and the cold, dark parts of the year can emphasize any loneliness we might be feeling), I often think of reaching out virtually before I think of reaching out in person...and there is nothing wrong with that!

Don't get me wrong, I adore my local friends, and there are definitely places that I feel at home at here in my town, but due to busy lives and what not, meeting up in person isn't always possible.  I definitely interact more with even local friends through digital means.

I also feel that we sometimes find our digital life (especially if we like to scroll on social media a lot...nope, totally 'not' guilty of that one....*snort) starts to feel toxic or heavy, it can be good to step out of the main stream and instead just connect with the people we do care about.  I often see people saying they want to step away from socials, and while I think that can be a good thing (and of course only you know what is best for your own mental health!), I do think that too much isolation can also be detrimental to our mental health.

Winter weather can also effect our mental state, not only is it cold (which often drives people to spend more time indoors), but winter weather can also limit our desire to leave our home.  Add in the reduced amount of daylight (which definitely effects some people more than others), and it's like we are setting ourselves up for moody times.

In order to counteract this seasonal slump, I think it's very important to lean into our communities, whether they are familial, local, friend, or online (or a combination of those!).  Reach out when you are feeling a bit down, and if you have the emotional reserves, reach out to people you know who you think might need a bit of a boost.  The thing about community is we are all part of it, and we all help to keep our communities healthy.

It's also a good way to trick your brain sometimes.  I know that I might be feeling in a slump, and not motivated to talk (because I don't really like venting or dumping my issues on other people), but if I see a friend who is struggling, I want to do what I can to help them, and often that in turn helps me feel better.  It's kind of funny how we are willing to do for other people things that we don't feel comfortable asking for help with ourselves.

So as they days grow darker, and the weather turns cold, and we find ourselves spending more time holed up inside, remember that you are part of many communities, and you can reach out to the ones that make you feel most connected!  This can take many forms, from a physical meetup, to a video or phone call, to texting or messaging, or whatever you and your communities like to do.  Embrace your people, and you will surely find that they embrace you back!

What drives your faith?

 There are many reasons why people have faith, and often it is a search for something bigger than themselves.  We look at the world around us and we just know that there is more than we can see.  And we want to understand, so we seek for that which can't be proven, only felt.

The thing about faith is that it asks us to be better, and being better is hard.  So we find motivation to do the things we feel we should be doing, and that motivation can be rooted in love...or in fear.  Faith rooted in love wants you to become the best person you can be, but it also wants other people to be the best they can be.  Faith rooted in fear tells you that if you don't behave properly, bad things will happen to you (either in this life or beyond).

Now, on the surface, this seems like a trivial issue.  Whether your actions are based in love or fear, it is your actions that matter, right?  But when we poke a bit deeper, we realize that love based actions are inclusive.  We want better for ourselves, but we also want better for everyone else.  There is no need to point fingers or turn away from people who are different from us.  The focus is on improving and becoming the best person you can be (and doing your part to make the whole world the best that it can be).

With fear based faith, the tendency is to only work hard enough to not get in trouble.  It also creates barriers between the 'good' people and the 'bad' ones.  Because some behaviors are sins and considered inherently evil, the people who do them are also linked to evil.  And treating someone as if they are evil, just because they do a thing you don't approve of (especially something that might only be considered a sin in your religion...and not in the general world view) doesn't encourage people to grow and be better, it simply makes them feel like they are flawed or otherwise less than.

But a fear based faith also encourages the mindset of 'it's okay if I don't get caught', because it's not about wanting to be better, it's just about not wanting to be punished.  This is why so many 'religious' people struggle with the concept of morality outside of their church.  It's why we hear things like, "If you don't have religion to tell you that killing is wrong, then people won't have a reason to not kill."  Which is a whole scary landmine of an attitude, if you ask me.

I also find that most people who have faith based in fear have a very cookie cutter approach to what 'good' means.  There are specific things you can (and can not) do, and there is no wiggle room.  Faith based in love tends to be more open to individuality.  It doesn't look at an action and judge it right or wrong in isolation, but it looks at the whole situation, it looks at the people involved and asks what is right for these people, in this moment.

Here's the twist:  faith based on fear is easier.  It's relatively simple and very clear cut.  Here is the list of things you Must Not Do!  There may be some things that you should do, but fear based faith is much more heavily weighted towards the do-nots.  And because it's a list of things, it's very clear cut, so there is no need to think or debate the morality of the thing.  Your faith tells you it's either good or bad, no exceptions.

Love based faith requires a lot of work.  You have to be really honest with yourself about where you are at.  You have to explore those icky feelings that you know aren't right (but you still feel them anyways).  You have to push yourself to find the bits of yourself that you don't care for...and work on them.  You have to think about situations, with all their nuance and complexity, and determine for yourself, what the best way forward is.

You also have to be really willing to accept other people for who they are.  Not who you want them to be, or who you think they should be...but who they are.  You meet people where they are, and you work with them, on the things that they are struggling with.  You let them be the master of their own ship and guide they way...you aren't there to take over, just to support.  And that is a lot harder than just telling them what they 'should' be doing and then judging them for their failings.

I want to point out here, that people can approach the same faith or religion from their own fear or love based perspective.  There are Christians who approach their faith from a love based perspective...and Pagans who are fear based.  This is about you...and how you interpret the faith you believe in.

It's also not necessarily a black and white thing.  You may be love based in some aspects of your faith and fear based in others (the afterlife is quite often a fear based belief).  There may be very specific parts of your faith that are rooted in fear.  Or maybe you grew up with fear based faith, but it is starting to unfold in a way that is now rooted in love.

Wherever you are in your faith journey, I encourage everyone to take a good look in your heart.  Think about why you do things, especially things related to your faith.  What motivates you?  Where are you acting out of fear, and where are you embracing the love?  Where can you turn fear based actions into love based ones?  The more we can open our hearts and work on improving everyone, the better the world (and thus all of us, individually), will be.

Embrace nostalgia

 Holidays can be a time fraught with all kinds of emotions, especially holidays like Thanksgiving that have a decidedly checkered past.  But they can also hold a lot of nostalgia and fond childhood memories, and we often try to capture those emotions in our adult life.

 

Whether you have happy memories of a holiday or are simply feeling wistful for that 'family holiday' that other people's families seemed to have,  you can seek out those emotions of family and celebration.  We can take the holiday as a time to put aside our troubles and woes of the day and just allow ourselves to enjoy the simple happiness of honoring an idea together.

And I know there is a lot of misinformation around some holidays.  They don't always represent the truth of what happened.  And we absolutely should recognize this fact and work to educate ourselves on what actually happened.

But I truly feel that the heart of a holiday isn't as simple as the stories we tell ourselves.  Especially when we have all these other emotions tied up into it.  Holidays often represent the idea behind them more than the history, and for one like Thanksgiving, we can turn to the story for the idea (that we should be thankful for our bounty and we should share what we have with people who don't have the same blessings).

The thing is...life is complicated.  So rarely is anything in life cut and dry, this or that...good or evil.  Things are tricky and one holiday may have a whole bundle of emotions rolled up into it.  We may remember some good years, and some bad years.  We might have family fights to block out or that one year when we were completely alone, or maybe we lost someone around the holiday and now it makes us a little sad.

I feel like holidays are one of those times where we can hold space for the rough stuff, but focus on the good.  We can recognize not only the issues there are with the first Thanksgiving story, acknowledge family drama, care for any trauma we might have around this time...and still enjoy a meal with friends and family, taking some time to think about all in our lives that we are grateful for.

I honestly think that holidays and celebrations throughout the year are vital to our mental and spiritual well-being.  We need these happy sparkling moments to make up for the drudgery of everyday life.  Holidays are often like rituals, they are time out of time.  

 

They are days that we set outside of our normal life. We put on nice (or extra comfy!) clothes, we gather with people we care about, and we eat good food and seek good times.  And that reset is necessary!  It gives us something to look forward to, a little goal or reward for doing all the stuff we do every day.

If you do anything long enough, you will end up with good and bad memories.  Good results can come from something that has a bad start.  But we can always choose which parts to focus on, and how we want to approach something.

And while I don't think it's healthy to always focus on the past, I do think that it is important to have touchstones to our past, and holidays do this in a couple of ways.  Firstly, they have roots, the first instance or the reason why we celebrate.  And we also have all the memories of every time we have celebrated before.  These all become beads on a string that represent the holiday.  

 

Every year, we have the chance to pull out our beads and hold them in our hands.  We can remember all the past years and reflect on how we have grown.  We can remember people who are no longer with us, and all the good times we had together.  We can embrace the nostalgia that comes up, and use it to temper any less pleasant memories that exist.

 

 It's important to not forget, and it's important to not let bad memories rob us of the good ones.  Take the time you need to sit with what comes up, but then allow nostalgia to coat you in feelings of warmth and safety.  It's okay to enjoy things, even if they have troubled pasts.

Veterans aren't disposable

 I feel like we have always known that we depend on the warriors in our society to protect us, to do the things necessary so that we can live out our lives in relative normalcy.  But I think we have started to treat soldiers as disposable commodity, something we can use and just toss away and get new ones, and the fact that these are people is just tragic.

We like to think we are civilized people, and yet we focus so much of our power on having the best military force...instead of turning our attention toward actually building a world where people can work together, for the good of all, and creating the structure to support that vision.  

The 'life cycle' if you will of a soldier starts with finding a young person at the peak of their physical shape.  We then train them to be skilled at the things we need them to do.  That becomes a slope, as they become more qualified, they also age and become less physically viable.  This often pushes them towards more strategic or advisory capacities, and we bring in new, young people to take their places.

And while we can debate all day whether this is a necessary cycle (or how much we should be scaling this cycle up or down), when a soldier becomes unable to fight, we do not treat them with the respect that they deserve.

Too often, our wounded soldiers don't get the care they need, and instead they are lost in the system.  The transition from active duty to civilian life can be rough, and we don't offer the services to help them make this transition well.  Both on the physical side and the mental/emotional side, we just stop giving them priority when they are out of active service.

This is one place where I feel very strongly.  I have military on both sides of my family, and my husband's family...and my son.  I grew up with a lot of pride for the soldiers in my family, and I know how lucky I am that the people I care about came home.  I also know not everyone is that lucky.

And it breaks my heart to think of soldiers coming home and being forgotten.  Not just by the government, and society, but also by families.  This is something that needs to be worked on from all sides.  We need more support for our returning soldiers, and that includes family counseling, to help family members understand and cope with any changes that their loved ones might have gone through.

We should know better.  We shouldn't be thinking of soldiers as assets and veterans as something to be tossed aside when their 'usefulness' has diminished.  If we, as a society, are allowing people to devolve because we don't see how they can be used...we need to seriously rethink our definition of civilized.  Because we are all human beings and we deserve to be able to live, to have a roof over our head and food in our bellies and to be treated as a person.  If we can't agree on that basic fact, then how are we better than animals (many of whom care for the whole community...)

We have systems in place to protect and provide for our politicians, and yet our soldiers give up so much more (and yes, even those who don't see combat have to sacrifice more of their life than a politician does...for MUCH less reward).  And we are told that there are resources for our soldiers, but obviously something is broken in the system.

We need to return to basic human decency.  We need to start treating people like people, not like cogs in a machine, assets to be used or resources to be spent.  We need to care for our vulnerable.  And we need to look out for our soldiers, the way that they looked out for us.  How can we expect anyone to step up and make those sacrifices knowing we will abandon them when their usefulness has run dry.