Launching The New Year With Hope
In a lovely short poem called “New Year,” writer James Crews describes the blank spaces on our fresh, new calendars as “snowy fields” untrod for the time being by the footsteps of multiple appointments and commitments.
I love that image of the new year as a clear field. It is a chance, James reminds us, to “hit the reset button/ on life, to pause at the cusp/ and draw a deep breath.”
Over the years, I’ve followed a number of steps to help set a fresh tone for each new year. I’ve incorporated many of these practices into an annual online mini-retreat I guide each January called “Writing the Prologue to Your New Year,” which I’ll offer again for the fifth year in a row on January 11. I’d like to briefly share some of those practices in the hope that they will prove as meaningful to you as they have been for me.
On December 31 or thereabouts, I usually do a review of the past year, going month by month, writing down the significant events, encounters and memories. I often dread doing this because I fear that I won’t have done enough in the past year — written enough, worked hard enough, or spent enough time with the people I love.
After going through each month of 2024, I was surprised to see in black and white on the page in front of me just how much I had accomplished . In reality, I guided more retreats and gave more talks and presentations last year — and in more cities — than in any previous year since I left fulltime journalism.
I was also delighted to see that I indeed had spent considerable time with friends — so much so that I finished my 2024 review with the exclamation, “What a busy, fruitful, productive, and meaningful year!”
The point is, I wouldn’t be feeling as good about what occurred in my life in 2024 if I hadn’t taken a magnifying glass, so to speak, to each month of the past year.
Another practice I recommend is the Burning Bowl Ritual, something the Unity Church outside of St. Louis, MO sponsors each year and that we can also do at home. It involves taking time to meditate on behaviors, habits, old grudges or resentments we want to release, writing them on a slip of paper, and setting them on fire in a pot or bowl.
Elizabeth G. Howard of the Unity Church explains, “For centuries, indigenous groups used smoke as a symbol of their thoughts and prayers rising to the Great Spirit,” similar to why Catholics like myself frequently light candles to accompany our prayers.
“The purpose of the ceremony is to shift consciousness,” Howard says. “It’s about becoming still, naming what you want to release, and letting it go … Letting go opens us to the power of inspiration, insight, wisdom, and love.”
Just as St. Paul acknowledged he experienced “a thorn in the flesh” that he couldn’t quite get rid of, I admit that I’ve been trying to release the same struggle for the past few years. Please don’t expect instantaneous miracles. Still, by desiring to let go of the emotional baggage weighing me down, I believe I relieve myself a bit more each year of some of that weight. I enter the coming year with the hope this will be the one in which I lay down all of those stone-filled suitcases.
I’ve also taken up a new practice this year, inspired by singer-songwriter Carrie Newcomer and her weekly “A Gathering of Spirits” blog. Instead of new year’s “resolutions,” why not aim for “revolutions?” Carrie asks. She defines revolutions as a fundamental change in the way we think.
“What might happen,” Carrie says, “if instead of focusing on resolving an old problem, we decided to intentionally open up our minds to a whole new way of thinking. What might change if we did, as [poet Rainer Maria] Rilke described, and truly welcomed ‘the new year, full of things that have never been.’”
I fell in love with this idea of seeking an internal revolution because it involves a transformation of the heart. So here are some of my hoped-for “revolutions” in the coming year:
To turn laments for what isn’t into gratitude for what is
To increase my orbit around an ever-expanding universe of friends
To look beyond appearances to what St. Bernard of Clairvaux called “the real behind the real”
To sing heartily of the goodness I see in the world and share generously of the goodness inside of me
What might be some of your hoped-for revolutions?
At the January 11 “Writing the Prologue to Your New Year” retreat, I and all who join me will engage a few other start-of-the year practices. We will choose a single word to guide us in 2025, an ancient practice that dates back to pilgrims who would visit the monks and monastic sisters living in the desert and seek from them a word to carry home, pray with, and ponder. In the past, folks have chosen such words as Perseverance; Mercy; Presence; and Adsum, a Latin expression meaning “I am here.”
We will also write a letter that lays out all that we envision for ourselves in the coming year. This is not a to-do list or catalogue of resolutions. I liken it to fleshing our the plot of what we want to unfold. It is a practice that springs from the wise old saying, “Write it down, make it happen.” It also echoes Steven Covey’s advice in “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” to “begin with the end in mind.”
Finally, I urge everyone to take what my friend the artist Angel Ambrose refers to as “A January Rest.” This is, after all, still hibernation season. So why not use it to go to bed earlier, to set aside work on certain days, and let the mind occasionally lie fallow. Let’s pause frequently to draw deep breaths. Let’s allow those white snowy fields on our January calendars stay as pristine and clear for as long as possible.
What are some of your new year practices?
To register for the “Writing the Prologue to Your New Year” online mini-retreat on Saturday, January 11, please visit: https://www.sienaretreatcenter.org/retreats/writing-the-prologue-to-your-new-year/
For more on Carrie Newcomer’s “A Gathering of Spirits” blog on Substack, please visit: https://www.carrienewcomer.com/a-gathering-of-spirits-on-substack
