Time: 1 hour minimum
Who is this for: Wildish Women of all faiths or no faiths who want to intentionally honor the year gone by and befriend the year to come.
Location: A private space of any size or shape where distractions are as limited as possible.
Dress: Dress in a way that feels cozy. Add a piece of clothing or accessory that helps connect you to what is sacred to you.
Materials:
- 3 candles and matches or lighter
- A journal and pen
- Some colored pencils, markers or crayons
- Memory Stirrers: your planner or calendar, your photos/phone/camera, journals. If you’re using it, put your phone on airplane mode to reduce distraction.
- Optional: your favorite wordless music to play throughout
As with anything I ever offer you, feel free to modify, to add or subtract anything you like. Remember: There is no wrong way to do this. Play!
Wild Remembrance: A Year-End Solo Ritual Recipe
Landing into the Ritual Space with 13 Breaths
Once you have all your materials laid out, and your space is set up just how you’d like it to be, get yourself seated.
When your bones are where you’d like them to be, close your eyes. Imagine breathing into your bones. With every breath in, the bones are filled with light, and with every breath out, they go dark. For 13 rounds of breath we call on our bones to help us remember.
Lighting 3 Candles for the Past, Present & Future
With full-bodied attention, light your 3 candles: 1 to honor the past, 1 to honor the present, and 1 to honor the future.
Ask aloud to life:
What was the year 2023 made of?
What was 2023 about for my Soul’s journey?
What do you want me to remember?
Month by Month Remembrance
With the help of your memory stirrers (photos, calendars, journals), beginning at Winter Solstice December 2022, remember what each month held.
Wrap your awareness around one month at a time.
For each month, ask: What events happened? What memories did you feel compelled to photograph? What was on your mind and heart? Allow yourself space to dream, to remember the month.
Then, close your eyes, and ask your inner guidance to choose a single meaningful moment for that month. See what comes. And trust what comes. It doesn’t have to be the most monumental moment or occasion (though it may be). It could be a very ordinary kind of moment. It may surprise you. Just see what comes.
With eyes closed, remember the singular moment as best you can. Imagine the moment both still, like a single frame in a movie, and alive, like the wild thing of breath and flesh it was when you lived it.
Is there a stand out image/symbol from this single moment? (Ex: a fallen tree, the dimples of a child, shiny red shoes.) Zoom in on the symbol in your minds eye. Breathe and remember. Take it in.
Draw the symbol in your journal with the Month written next to it.
Blow a kiss to that singular moment and everything it held. As you kiss your hand, feel your hearts connection to life, and as you blow the breath, you send your spirit through time and space as a gift of gratitude.
Do this Month by Month, 13 times, starting with Solstice in December 2022 – December 2023.
Please note that this is not about remembering only the joyful stuff. I
sit in Circle often enough to know that life is a mixed bag of joys and sorrows, ease and rigor, dark and light. As wild women, we embrace the wholeness of life, the rose bud and the thorns.
Sit with Symbols
Look at your journal, trace with your eyes and finger tips, symbol to symbol, month to month.
Notice any threads of connection between these symbols, these moments. Is there a subtle story being told here? Any patterns? Any harmony?
Sense with your heart.
Take down any notes or reflections you want to carry with you.
Come Home to the Here & Now
Close your eyes and come back to your breath, come back to your bones, right here in the present moment, this moment right here.
What is here now? Inside of your body, heart, and mind?
Sit in stillness and silence for as long as you like. See if you can find some pleasure in the simple nourishment of the moment – no where to go, nothing to do. No rush. Be.
Write a letter to 2024
Consider that at the dawning of a New Year, we have the opportunity to befriend the stretch of life ahead. What would you like to say to/ask the coming year? Feel free to be prayerful or playful or both.
Make an offering of Gratitude to Life
What a powerful thing to be alive. We only get to do it for a short time. Connect with your gratitude to life itself.
Then make a gratitude offering of any kind:
- Say something aloud.
- Write a poem.
- Sing a song or chant.
- Play an instrument.
- Leave a physical gift on your altar.
- Dance.
- Anything.
(No one is watching. Do what you feel.)
Closing howl and blowing candle.
When you’re ready and only when you’re ready: take a breath in, then exhale a howl at any volume. (Honoring the Wild.)
Take another breathe in and exhale blow out the candles ~ past, present, future~ to close the ritual space.
If you like, let me know in the comments how your solo Ritual time went! Feel free to share one of your memory and/or memory symbols. I always love to hear from you ♥️.
Hello Chris!
A Happy, Healthy, Abundant New Year to YOU!!
I just wanted to send you deep appreciation for your end of year activity.
It was absolutely perfect! Your talents, skills. love and compassion come through on every level.
I so appreciate YOU and your generous Spirit.
Take good care of your Divine Self and I hope to attend more of your offerings in 2024.
Sending much, much love,
Amy Nelson – Wilmington, NC
Awww…thanks for your kind words, Amy. So happy to read all of this. Best wishes for a beautiful New Year, Amy!