New Year's Eve

Tonight is New Year's Eve - a big night for many people. W and I will celebrate quietly at home this year. AND I will continue my 12 Days of Christmas mini-retreat, focusing on my priorities and what I'm called to do next in my life.

I'm finishing up the work of setting goals and resolutions for the New Year, focusing on my priorities, which are Love, Home, Health, Service, Learning, Creativity, and Life Purpose. 

I came up with this list of priorities a few months ago as a way to give my daily action more focus. It has been so restful to know which activities truly matter most to me, and how to best spend my time. I just plan on doing one or two things in each of these categories, and everything else I fit in around the side! 

I'll take some time this spring to re-evaluate my priorities, but for now I'm sticking with this list.

Agenda today:

1. Kwanzaa principles

2. Journal queries

3. Creativity goals for 2021

4. Practice creativity with 

a resolutions postcard

5. Wassail my apple tree
6. Make noise!
1. Kwanzaa principles:
The sixth day of Kwanzaa is dedicated to the principle of Kuumba (koo-OOM-bah), which is creativity. I can use my creative energies to build a beautiful and vibrant home and community.

2. Journal queries:

What creative ideas do I have to improve my house, my relationships, my faith community, my neighborhood, and my community?

 

How can I use my art and writing to enlighten and project my creative vision into the world? What themes are calling out to me to express this year?

 

How can I use craftivism to spread a message of peace, social justice, and environmental responsibility into the world?

 

How can I develop and expand my playful, joyful, spontaneous, creative qualities and share these with my tiny grandson?

3. Creativity goals for 2021:

My theme for today is creativity and self-expression, my final priority. Creativity is a way of thinking and being: A creative mind is very relaxed, expansive, and spontaneous. When I am open to creativity and inspiration, I can see original answers to any question. 

The childlike qualities of joy and curiosity support my innovative, creative spirit. I use my creativity to make things, and express myself, and also to solve problems. Creativity goals might be to increase my curiosity and wonder, to explore and develop my playful qualities, or to express my deepest messages.

My ideas for creativity and self-expression goals for next year so far are:

• Make Discovery my theme this year: See life anew, through the eyes of a baby. 
• Reconnect to nature. Use my art and writing to give a voice to nature and the environment.
• Plan adventures and playful explorations every week for myself and my grandson. Collect baby and toddler art ideas, and make art together.
• When it's safe, volunteer to make art with kids again. (Perhaps team up with PBB for stories and crafts?)
• Complete a monthly craftivism project to spread a message of peace, social justice, and environmental responsibility into the world.

4. Practice creativity with a resolutions postcard:

I like to make my goals visible, so I made this collage postcard of my 2021 resolutions to pin to my bulletin board.

For the last few years I've given my years themes: 2019 was my "Year of Virtue", and 2020 was my "Year of Gestation". I generally choose something poetic that embraces the overall trend of my goals and resolutions for the year.

2021 is my "Year of Discovery".

5. Wassail my apple tree:

The wassail bowl is an old Gaelic tradition still observed in Scotland and Great Britain. The word wassail comes from the Old English wes hál, meaning to be whole, and it was a toast made at medieval feasts to welcome the guests. People would carry a bowl of hot cider or ale outdoors on New Year’s Eve to share with neighbors, and groups of wassailers would go door-to-door singing to get their bowls filled. 

I really love my apple tree, and so sometime tonight I will probably slip out to toast it's health, pour some cider on it’s roots, and give it a "Hurra".

"Here’s to thee, old apple-tree,

Whence thou mayst bud, and whence thou mayst blow,
And whence thou mayst bear apples enow!
Hats-full! Caps-full!
Bushel, bushel sacks-full!
And my pockets full, too! Hurra!”

6. Make noise: 

Noise-making is considered an effective way to drive off the spirits of the old year and awaken the sleeping new year. We will gather horns, bells, pots, pans, and whistles, throw open the door at midnight, count down the final seconds of the old year, then let loose with whoops and cheers, bangs and toots, to welcome in the New Year.