On New Years magic & the stubbornness of human hearts
I hope that you are all finding some moments of ease, rest, and connection throughout this winter season!
This time of year is always very dear to my heart - like many born in the Soviet Union, I grew up celebrating New Years as the crowning holiday of winter.
In Siberia, winter was a durational, fully immersive experience - half a year of freezing temperatures, an entire universe of white and gray. There were only a few precious hours of daylight, and the world wore a thick, glittering coat of snow and ice for months on end.
As such, New Years was an elaborate ritual of cultivating joy and warmth within (very literal) darkness and cold. No matter how dreary things got, even in the massive uncertainty of the 90s as the USSR was completely falling apart (supply chains? um, what supply chains?) there was a collective determination to make sure New Years eve was celebrated, and celebrated well.
The sharp smell of a fresh fir tree brought inside. Bright tinsel. Warm bodies shedding layers of coats and boots in a small apartment to feast and toast to a new cycle. Laughter and singing, dissolving into absurdity. Family and friends calling to say “s novym godom, s novym chastyem!” - “to a happy new year, to new joy!”
Everybody has their own set of traditions, of course - from going to the sauna to wash away the old year and welcome the new (immortalized in the 1970’s Soviet holiday film "С Легким Паром" - “Enjoy your Bath”) to making enough of Salat Olivie to fill a small tub. Miracles are believed to happen on December 31st, and there are many superstitions about how to best spend the evening to ensure favorable outcomes in the coming months.
It seems like the human need for magic and transcendence has never wavered, even in an atheist state. If anything, this need became even stronger, even more strangely, privately stubbornly mystical.
As we settle into the closing day of 2021, I want to thank all you for being being a part of my small universe in the past 12 months. This year has challenged all of us to navigate extreme polarities and learn how to intentionally cultivate joy and connection through a variety of Shadows, both on personal and collective levels. It is a huge honor to continue to be building new and exciting ways of teaching and sharing my work, and I am so grateful to all of you for being a part of this journey.
If ritual is the way that we consciously transition through emotional states, then I hope that the evening of December 31st grants you a meaningful completion of this cycle, and a beautiful opening to the next - however that looks like for you.
Remember, magic is always possible.
I can't wait to share what I have in store for 2022 (and beyond.)
To a happy New Year, to New Joy!
*winter woods img by Mikhail Nilov