For more than two decades, Gwion and I have done pretty much the same ritual to celebrate the New Year.
I need to sit down to compose myself because I can't believe I'm even old enough to have done the same ritual for more than twenty years. Gimme a minute. Okay...I'm back. The New Year Honoring the New Year is a strange thing when you stop to think about it. Most people in the world have agreed that when an arbitrary box on a human made device known as a calendar gets ticked, we throw a party, wear cleverly crafted sparkly glasses shaped as numbers, quaff buckets of prosecco, and make some spectacularly bad decisions. (Remind me to tell you about Gwion laying in the front garden one of these days) But, when you stop to think about it, it's pretty cool (not the laying in the front garden bit, the New Years bit). Once every twelve months, we wipe the proverbial slate clean, make all sorts of promises to change our behaviors, and occasionally actually do those things. Our New Year's Ritual Here's what we do. We head out to the coast. There's a beach with an overlook that's rarely ever visited by humans. In fact, we've only seen three people there in all the years we've gone there. We affectionally call this cliff top the "ultimate picnic spot". When I say cliff top, I really mean that. One misplaced step and you'll fall a couple hundred feet down into the rocks and crashing waves. Once we're there, we pull out two pennies from the year that was. So, this year, we had two 2024 pennies. We stand as close to the edge as is safe, and recount all the wonderful, challenging, inspiring, terrible, hard, spectacular things that happened that year. We sort of rate the year by saying "on balance, this was a good year" or "This was a year that we survived but we'd rather not repeat please". Then, we thank the year and toss the pennies into the sea. Then we head on to another spot on the cliff and, depending on the weather and our mood, we whip off our clothes and stand naked in front of the Pacific Ocean, the gods, the universe, and each other and say something like "Okay _____(fill in new year), we're ready and willing to take you on. Let's make this a great year". On occasion, we...um...seal our pledge with an adult act between two consenting adults (Ewwww!). Many years, if it's cold, windy, and rainy, we just lift up our shirts and flash each other and then run back to the car as quickly as possible. What it means to us There's lots of ways to mark the shift in the calendar and you certainly don't need to go to the edge of a cliff and bare yourself, but for us it works and here's why. We have to collect the pennies. That starts us thinking about the year. We have to reflect on what happened to us - All of it, the good and the bad. We thank each other, we thank the forces out there, we celebrate our good fortune and wish good riddance to any misfortune. We stop. Just for a little bit to notice the moment and to mark it in some way. And that's really the point of it, isn't it? One of the very best things about being a witch (or druid or eclectic whatever you are) is that there are multiple times throughout the year when we get to stop, reflect, and even start over. If you're someone who follows the "traditional" Wheel of the Year (don't get me started on that), for instance, there are eight opportunities to assess where you're at and start again with the energy of the season as your guide. But New Years, secular New Years, that moment when the clock strikes midnight on December 31st, the whole world starts anew. And that's a pretty cool piece of magick to acknowledge. A few years back, Gwion and I did a podcast on New Year's Magick. You can listen to it here in our Archive section. Go do Witchy Things! Phoenix
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