My Hope for the New Year

My son Reese on a desolate road somewhere between Colorado and Wyoming - June 2018

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Truth be told, I’m not much of a fan of the winter’s New Year celebration, as it doesn’t seem right that the new year should begin in the midst of winter’s darkness.

For me, I think of Fall as the commencement of the New Year.  Be it childhood conditioning from starting a new school year, or the relief felt from the arrival of cooler temperatures after long southern summers, or perhaps my body’s own biological observance of the earth's transformation process that Fall initiates.  The beautiful deadening and dropping of leaves, the shorter, darker days, signals a death in the earth that must take place for all of the glories of Spring and the beauty of Summer to emerge. 

And so the same is true of us human types.  All of the many destructions in our own lives pave the way for something more beautiful on the other side.  All of it is a cycle - you “die” to one thing to live in the beauty of what that “death” has brought to you.

Mine and my family’s rootlessness, journey, and adventures over the last year has brought us to a series of deaths and rebirths: letting go of our life in Charleston to embrace the possibility of a new life and new purpose elsewhere, “dying” to the ego’s expectations and definitions of worthiness and productiveness to fully embrace the ability to be present and together during our time of wandering amongst some of our country’s most magnificent natural wonders, and releasing all of our many plans and expectations for a life in Tallahassee when we were finally guided twenty miles up the road to Thomasville, Georgia, to the home and community that was meant for us all along.

All of the wandering and rootlessness we’ve experienced over the last year has completely turned me upside down, unearthed things left unresolved and uncared for, and has challenged my ability to feel whole and complete without a home, community, work, and a solid game plan. Yet as I sit here writing this, feeling rooted again into a home, community, and a renewed sense of purpose, my heart is filled with wholeness, gratitude, and grace that has come by doing the hard work of letting go of my expectations.

We take so much for granted in this life, thinking that a roof over our heads is a given and that we’ll be happier or more whole when we have more, or when we have finally achieved “it”.  What a lie that is.  The lesson this year has taught me is that we are born into abundance, just as we are.  And we’ve been given this beautiful world to live on and commune with, and beautiful beings in our lives to love and learn from.  We already have everything we need - all thats left to do is enjoy.

So, my friends, my hope for the New Year is not filled with goals or ambitions, but rather the intention to continue to be grateful for the continual cycles of death and rebirth in all of the small and significant ways they appear in my life, and to be vigilant in listening and living fully into what they have have arrived to teach me.  May the same be true for you, in wherever you find yourself this New Year’s Eve.

Grace and peace,

Katherine