New Year’s Reflection: Your Soul and Ritual

Image courtesy of Flickr

The year that I spent living on the coast of Oregon has come back to me in the last several days, and seems an appropriate reflection for the start of 2014.

It was fall when I moved there, and near Christmastime when I met a wise woman at church whom I befriended simply because she happened to be there each time I went, seeking solace because I was so far away from home.

She was twice my age, literally, and in January that year invited me to join her and a group of other women who fellowshipped together once a month.  I was clearly a newcomer to their clan, and while I sought to approach the meetings with reverence, it was truly intimidation that I was experiencing. I was the only woman there under the age of fifty, in fact at the time I was shy by over two decades.  We were gathering there, one Sunday afternoon a month in a room off of the side of the chapel, to study spiritual principals.

The purpose was not to talk about our “ideas”.  The purpose was to try, daily, to embody themes like honesty, courage, patience, forgiveness—there was one theme or precept each month—then report back the third week of that month and share with each other how it was going.  It was humbling, awe-inspiring, the vulnerability, the grace these women taught merely by sharing what was going on as they took each day on, and spoke freely about the struggles and joys of each day, new again.

I learned about the process, which we are always in, about starting over, and continuing on.  This says nothing of the deepening knowledge of self in relation to the precepts we studied as the year unfolded and moved us on.

In some way, I realize now, I got to enact an ancient rite writ on the interior of the soul.  In present day, it is an outdated tradition, but oh how much from it there is to learn: to gather at the feet of our elders, to soak in their wisdom, to saturate their experience by being a part of processing it with them.

It became a practice I later took back to some girlfriends on the east coast; indeed it influenced and informed the start of my women’s work and sacred circle gatherings.

In this work with women it always comes back to creating sacred time and space to reflect and connect with what is authentic in you, deep within.   It’s a great time—the New Year—to create a new ritual for your self that honors this.  Ritual grounds and connects us, gives us meaning, which is fundamental to happiness.

And this has a multi-meaning message for the first of the year.  A perfect time to challenge yourself to embody values, to, perhaps instead of resolving to get back to the gym or call your sister more, study the underlying themes in your life and see how you progress through the challenges of looking a little deeper at these truths.  To consider your role as a mother for what it is: elder, imparter of wisdom and grace.  To take the wisdom of the year that has just passed and, as the old axiom challenges us: ask yourself if with wisdom comes responsibility, how do I, and with whom can I, give it back?

Create for you a ritual that is meaningful to you.  Perhaps with others, or maybe just for you! Gather your own group of gals for brunch once a month with a discussion theme; start an email chain for your mom friends with a parenting principle each month and a safe place to share your vents; visit your own elders and ask for their stories; start a solitary study of a theme each month and how you are growing in relationship to it; or maybe, just commit to showing up to your own self this year, and, when you’ve forgotten for a while, simply pick up and begin again.

Recognize that this act of communion, practicing the art of showing up, of creating bonds through the virtue of commitment, is instruction on giving and receiving.  It is a tradition that is undervalued but a great need of the soul, to come together, to be accountable.

May your new year be rich and your own lessons and inner wisdom be made known.  May it inform your parenting and help grow your roles.  My wish to you this new year is that you create for yourself a ritual that takes seriously and with joy who you are and your work in this world, however big or small, day by day.