Winter Blessings and Beauties, Day 61: Cleansing on New Year's Eve

 

Every year on New Year's Eve, I turn my attentions to tidying up loose ends, cleaning the house physically and cleansing it energetically. I began this tradition almost by accident, but the idea really resonates with me, and so I have continued it each year. New Year's Eve is also the day I conclude my annual Clean Start Soap Spell, so this morning saw me diligently using up the last slivers of soap. Interestingly, this year they seemed reluctant to finally dissolve away, so I'm taking that as an unfortunate omen that the issues and energies of 2020 will be tenaciously hanging on into 2021. Be that as it may, I'm cleaning and cleansing in preparation for a fresh new start tomorrow. Won't you join me?

Winter Blessings and Beauties: Day 61

Cleansing on New Year's Eve

There are many ways you can clean and cleanse in preparation for the New Year. Clean your home, bathe yourself, do an energetic cleansing of yourself and your surroundings. Here are some ideas.

• Tidy your home, putting things away in their proper places and throwing away/giving away/donating to charity anything which is no longer required. 
• Clean your home - wipe down surfaces, sweep the floor, scrub the sink.
• Put fresh bedlinen on your bed, clean towels in the bathroom and clean tea-towels in the kitchen.
• Wash, dry and put away the dishes after your meal.
• Wash and valet your car.
• Open all the windows for at least 10 minutes to allow fresh air to circulate.
• Do an energetic space cleansing by sprinkling a little salt water around the perimeter of each room and at each door and window.
• Use a singing bowl or a smudge stick to cleanse your home and yourself of any negative energy.

For more inspiration on cleansing your space (including recipes for making your own magical cleaning products) see my post on Magical Spring Cleaning.

Winter Blessings and Beauties, Day 60: Year End Review

 

The year 2020 is drawing to a close. Is that a sigh of relief I can hear? 

For many - most? - of us this has been a year like no other. The entire world has collectively had to navigate these strange, challenging, stressful, tedious, frightening times.

Most years I find the last few days of the year a good time to look back over the preceding twelve months - both good and bad. This year I think it's more important than ever to reflect on the events of the last year. It has been a time of such momentous change for everyone that there must be a serious need to process it all. In fact, I suspect we'll be processing 2020 for a good long time to come. 

Despite the dramas of 2020 though, I believe when looking back we'll be able to find happy memories as well as difficult ones. Life is never all good or all bad. For example, Coronavirus has had a devastating impact on my work and income, we've had major maintenance issues with the house and several of my loved ones have been battling serious illness. Yet I've loved having more free time on my hands to spend on gardening and writing again; I've had my faith in human nature restored by so many acts of love, kindness and generosity; and I've had space to stand back, reassess my life and realise what is really important - and what isn't.  

Winter Blessings and Beauties - Day 60

Year End Review

In your notebook or journal, make some notes reviewing 2020. Probably there will be some major events that stand out in your memory so make a brief note of these first. Then cast your mind back, month by month and try to remember what other things occurred. If you need to jog your memory, look back through your journal, diary, calendar, blog, social media accounts or even the photos on your phone. Make brief notes of everything you remember.

Now start to flesh things out and ask yourself some questions about the year. What were the best things that happened? What were the worst? What did you learn? What did you lose? What things would you like to leave behind in 2020? What will you gladly take forward with you into 2021? What unfinished business do you have to deal with?  What did you achieve? What are you hoping for? What would you differently next time? 

Try to find a sentence - or two - that sums up 2020, good and bad.  

The Ice Age

Like most of the UK, we are currently enduring the most extreme snowy weather for decades.

It began on 21st December, when we awoke to find that heavy snow had fallen during the night. Temperatures had been below freezing for about a week beforehand, so the snow was slow in melting. The driveway here is steep, and leads out to a steep downhill slope, which made it impossible to use the car for a couple of days. However, by the afternoon of 23rd December, enough tarmac was visible for me to try driving into the village. The journey was a little hair raising on the way down, but the journey back was much worse. Although I was only gone for just over an hour, thick snow had begun to fall by the time I returned, and the car wheels spun uselessly as I attempted to get back to Halfway Up A Hill. Cursing my luck and coaxing the car, somehow I made it to the drive entrance, where I was only able to manoeuvre the car in through the gates and safely home with the help of my neighbour and IB, who was waiting anxiously at home for me.

Over the next couple of days, the snow fell, melted a little, re-froze into thick black ice, more snow fell, and repeated the cycle. By Christmas morning, the road to the house was completely impassable by car, and we feared we'd miss the family Christmas happening just a few miles away at my parents' new home. It was eventually arranged that if we could hike out on foot to the main road, Dad would come and pick us up. After making provisions for the animals, we quickly packed some goodies for an overnight stay, and stuffed them and the Christmas presents into two rucksacks. Dressed warmly in our Christmas finery with thick woolly jumpers, coats, scarves and boots, we slid gingerly down the hill where we were very relieved to find Dad waiting for us in a warm car.

Christmas was lovely, we had a wonderful time with Mum, Dad, and my brother, sister-in-law and nephew eating, drinking, laughing and of course watching the first instalment of the much anticipated Dr Who special! The next day, Dad drove us home. Overnight it had rained, and although there was still a lot of ice around, within a couple of days we were able to get the car out and stock up on much needed supplies for ourselves and the critters. We were also lucky enough to get a delivery of heating oil because on New Year's Day, the snow began falling again.
The day had been sunny and clear - although bitterly cold - and we were planning to drive over to Mum and Dad's again just after lunch to see my brother, sister and brother-in-law who were all visiting for New Year. Unfortunately - or perhaps fortunately - one of the chickens (Blanche, who is now quite advanced in chicken years) was looking unwell*, and with the weather being so bitter we decided to leave our departure until after sundown to ensure she was safely tucked up in the hen house for the night. This proved to be our salvation, as just before the sun set the snow began falling heavily. We waited to see if it would ease off, but it continued to fall and in the end we decided not to risk getting stranded.

It was a wise decision. Heavy snow once again blanketed the area, and the car was again stranded on the driveway. I hoped that at some stage we would be able to escape our icy prison and see my siblings, but it proved impossible - and this time Mum and Dad's house was as cut off as ours.

On Monday 4th January, I was due back at work (I currently have 2 part time jobs) and I managed to hike down the hill to catch a bus, this time with the aid of a torch as it was before dawn - yikes! However, it was soon clear that the weather was a severe handicap to business as usual, and I was sent home early from both jobs. Since then, we have had about 6-8" more snow (it snowed all day yesterday) and my place of work has been closed due to the weather.

It is nice not to have to go to work, and the snow looks so pretty. But I am more than tired now of our enforced isolation. The snow is now so deep - with thick, treacherous ice concealed beneath - that even going for a walk is out of the question. Just feeding the chickens is becoming an extreme sport! It is true to say that the novelty of this weather has well and truly worn off for me! And as yet there is no thaw in sight. Luckily we have plenty of provisions and the house is warm. In the meantime, I'm praying for a rise in temperature outside.

* For those worried about Blanche, rest assured that she is currently nestled cosily in a cardboard box next to a radiator in the house and is showing signs of improvement.

Review

Snowed in on a cold, icy Christmas Eve, I have finally found time to look back over the last twelve months.





This year, I have mostly been

• Picking up the pieces of my life and starting over


• Re-finding myself and remembering who I truly am


• Giving thanks for the beloved friends and family who stick with me through thick and thin


• Stumbling my way back into paid employment for the first time in many years


• Realising that my home is now my home, and making it truly mine


• Mourning significant losses


• Trusting my intuition as never before


• Getting away from it all in Spain, Sussex, Somerset, Kent and Dorset with some of my favourite people

• Finding that actually, I can be organised and efficient!
• Contemplating a whole new world of possible futures
• Enjoying having family living close by
• Quite unexpectedly finding new love...

What have you mostly been doing this year?

Blessed Yuletide, Merry Christmas, and the Happiest of New Years to you.

Happy New Year!

Last night, while the majority of people would have been partying away the last of the old year, I was sweeping the kitchen.

Remembering all the lore about sweeping away the old and making space for the new, I was suddenly seized with the desire to clean, clean, clean away the dregs of 2008 ready for a bright new start in 2009. So I swept and cleaned the kitchen and living areas, emptied all the rubbish, polished everything until it gleamed and paid special attention to cleaning the hearth (heart of the home).

I've never been a great one for New Year's Eve partying anyway. My Mum's family always celebrated it, probably because of their Scottish ancestry. New Year was a big deal, where the whole family had to stay up and welcome in the New Year or risk bad luck for the next twelve months. Just before midnight my Dad would be pushed out into the cold night, from where, as the tallest dark haired man in the party and armed with a lump of coal and a glass of whisky he would perform the duty of 'first footing'.

Since I left home I haven't really made a conscious effort to celebrate New Year, yet looking back, I don't think there have been many years that I haven't been awake to see it in, even if it has often been just T and I at home raising a glass to each other. Last night I had intended to go to bed early, but somehow it was 11.30pm before I knew it and it seemed daft to go to bed so close to midnight. So the cats and I welcomed in 2009 in company with Jools Holland.

This New Year morning it is cold and frosty again, white as a clean page. To keep up the sympathetic magic initiated with my cleaning session last night, I have decided to try to have a day in which I only put energy into the things I want to cultivate this year. I had a good start when some neighbourhood children came round to sing a New Year song (making community connections), later I will have a nice long soak in a Lush-scented bath (time for myself, pleasure) and then speak to my family on the phone and see my good friends Pinky & Harry (family & friendships). I will cook a spicy veggie chili for dinner (taking care of my body). And I suppose I ought to also find time to spend on making some more items for the Etsy shop (creativity, making money)!

I hope you all celebrated an enjoyable New Year, and I wish everyone a very Happy, Harmonious, Healthy and Prosperous 2009!

Blessed Be.

Adieu, 2007

Let me be clear: I'm usually a happy, positive person. I see the silver lining in the cloud, the glass half-full, and make lemonade out of life's lemons. I don't believe in good or bad luck, I believe it's all in your perspective.

But let me also be clear: 2007 sucked. Big time.

I can't honestly remember another year which has been so determinedly, stubbornly, negative. And I don't mean just for me. Everyone I know has had a lousy year - bereavements, illnesses, financial hardships, job losses, workplace dramas, failed relationships have abounded. All topped off by truly awful weather. As I look back on the year, the overriding sensation is of a constant uphill struggle.

It seems to me there must be some big, cosmic pattern at work. I don't know enough about astrology to make an informed comment, but surely there is some kind of major planetary disharmony going on? And hopefully if that is the case, it can't last forever?

In my search for clues that the tide of fortune may be turning, I remember that Christmas 2006 was a bit of a disaster for my family. We had all planned to have Christmas together at my sister's house. Unfortunately the building work they were having done wasn't finished in time so the venue had to be changed to Mum & Dad's. Then the person who'd promised to house sit and care take the animals for us so we could be away, discovered she couldn't house sit after all - so T & I couldn't go. In the meantime, my parents went down with food poisoning which lasted throughout Christmas, my sister-in-law's car broke down on the journey up from Somerset leaving her stranded at the roadside with my 4 year old nephew, and to cap it all off, while my sister and her husband were spending Christmas at Mum & Dad's, their own home was burgled.

This year, Christmas has been a much more enjoyable experience! After a somewhat manic lead up to the big day, all has gone smoothly and easily. Everyone has been relaxed and happy, the food preparation went smoothly, there was plenty of it and it was delicious: no culinary disasters to report. Excellent gifts have been given and received, the house has been comfortable and cosy, the cats accepted my sister's dog quite happily and even the weather's been quite mild, allowing for pleasant walks interspersed with all the feasting! Quite a contrast to last year. So now I'm feeling quite positive that perhaps the change is coming. 2007 is drawing to a close; 2008 will be better!

Yes, at heart I'm an optimist. And there is plenty to look forward to in the coming year. My Mum & Dad are moving to Wales, Avalon Spring is going to be wonderful, my brother is planning another big party in the spring, and that's just the tip of the iceberg! We have a whole new year to fill up with fun.

Thanks, 2007, for the lessons learned about coping with adversity, the strength of family and community and acting with grace when under pressure. Thank you, and adieu.

And hallo and welcome, 2008! We've been SO looking forward to meeting you!