I love New Years Day.
As much as I also love Winter Solstice, it falls too close to the holidays and gets trampled beneath the feet of travel and shopping, for me to completely find rest and peace on that day. But New Years Day falls after all the craziness and I get to be home, me alone, without obligation or interruption of any sort, wandering through the day in any way I choose.
My Winter Solstice ritual is fairly simple. My New Years activities are greater in number.
I begin by spending New Year’s Eve in the way that most suits what my body, mind, spirit and heart ask of me. This year, I had a cold and I decided to, speak with one of my best friends, watch a movie, participate in an East Coast 15 minute meditation with Ping Li for the new year by teleconference (which means I get to do it at 9pm) and then take a bath listening to Hawaiian slack key guitar music.
I decided to get a jump on my New Years divination activities by completing the evening with a Flying Bird spread using Osho Zen Tarot cards. Doing divination is a way for me to co-create with the Divine. So I call it Divine-ing. I’ve done this for the past few years and last year’s spread spoke to me all year long in the most profound ways, so I wanted to see what might happen this year.
As I lay out the spread, I became disconcerted. I was tired and the quick interpretation I did of it made little sense to me. I decided to sleep on it.
This morning, I reviewed the spread referring to the expanded version of Osho’s book as well as using Pamela Eakins’ Tarot of the Spirit book. I was thrilled with what the cards portend. The cards fell as a continuation of last year’s spread and gave me a peek into an adventurous 2011.
After that, I began my other favorite divinations: pulling a Healing with the Angels card, two Spirit Cards (I AM and I WILL) and sitting in meditation. Near the beginning of my sitting, I heard a hummingbird, but there was none by the window and the sound came from my altar which houses my crystals and animal totems. It dawned on me that I might pull an Animal Medicine Card as the animal guide for the year and then randomly open to a page in the Crystal Bible to find a crystal guide for the year. Not surprisingly, yet delightfully, the two were well connected in essence.
I tell you about the practice without revealing the actual cards, because my meditation practices are for the most part private, unless I choose to reveal them for teachings (as I did in Movin’ On (take 3) Un-boxed and Settling In) I enjoy giving you some ideas for what you might do with divination for the new year. This is a practice aside from vision boards, vision stories, setting goals and choosing words for the year.
Speaking of choosing words, I noticed that a number of my Facebook friends were choosing their words for 2011. Choosing. Great coaching word. At first, I resisted, and then I thought, I will randomly pick a word from the dictionary and see what comes up, for fun.
You see, I love the random choices. That’s why I do divination. If I choose something, there’s a good chance I will choose from my mind. I will choose something I think should be the word, symbol, focus. I do plenty of that with my business and goal setting. What I want is an infusion from my intuition and I use the divination methods as a way to pop my thinking outside of its well-worn grooves. Sometimes, the cards make no sense, at least not to my logical mind and certainly not to my ego’s goals. The ego’s sense of timing is completely different from the soul, for the most part. Divination or randomness has a way of teaching me, through gradual unfolding of understanding, how these cards, these symbols, play out in my life over the year.
Making sense out of chaos requires creative thinking and maybe the process begins with making chaos out of sense. I take the cards seriously and not seriously at all.
The divination from 2010 revealed treasures that sparkled for me, that reflected a me I could not see at first. They pulled me back time and again to a spacious way of being with myself and circumstances.
2010’s Flying Bird spread unfolded miraculously. I kept it on the wall in my mediation room and referred to it from time to time. I could see how all cards were dynamically active all year long and at the same time guiding me down my evolutionary pathway.
My angel cards from last year, Divine Timing and Manifestation, were a constant reminder to be patient whenever I got upset with the timing of things.
Anyway – back to the word. I pulled a dictionary off the shelf and flipped back and forth until the moment felt right and I stabbed a page with my finger, but the page I struck was blank. I thought the pages had flipped, but they hadn’t.
I decided to try it again with a thesaurus as if a different book might be the key. My finger landed in between entries, pointing to a completely blank spot.
“OK” I said to no one in particular and someone watching over me. “I guess you don’t want me to have a word.” (I knew there were plenty of other interpretations, but I chose to be disinterested.)
I headed upstairs to unpack from my trip and create a laundry pile. There on the floor, previously unnoticed was a Spirit Card that said:
Passion
I laughed, just as I had squealed with delight when I pulled some of my other cards today. I like the way the Mystery plays with me.
That’s my word for 2011. Passion. If you knew the other cards I pulled, you’d know there could not be a more suitable word. There is plenty to explore when contemplating passion. There is so much more for me to know about this word and all it symbolizes, not to mention so much to embody.
So there you have it. I’ve revealed my word. The rest will remain a mystery for now.
I’m heading off to play with structures:
- What are the structures and practices, what is the scaffolding that will support dancing in the Mystery?
- What is the framework that will bend and flex with me as I explore the frontier of my own thinking?
- What is the calendar of the heart, the timepiece of the soul?
I’ll be writing about this over the coming months.
I’m deeply grateful for each and every one of you dear readers. Your comments and email notes mean a lot to me and I love our connection.
Thank you Thank you Thank you!
Coming up: my first ever “predictions” post. Stay tuned!
words and images copyright (c) January 2011, Kathy J Loh, All Rights Reserved
Love reading about how you danced (metaphorically) into the New Year — and I know just what you mean about random choices (as opposed to the ones coming from mind) – so cool to allow yourself to play in that way.
Yea for laughing, squealing and PASSION! Blessings in the new year!
And Kathy, I am looking forward to your first ever predictions post!!
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Thanks Karen! now that I’ve said I’m going to do it, I guess I will have to huh? I figured you to be someone who would connect on the random piece too. 🙂
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Kathy,
Thanks for sharing your new year’s rituals with us. I love it, and having been in your space, I can see it all!
I had remarkable insights and peace while at your home, which I believe is partially due to your healing energy.
I might have missed this, but what spread did you use? I want to do what you did – make color copies of the cards to see throughout the year. I did a reading last night and was dismayed with the final card – 5 of cups. My friend helped me re-frame the interpretation, which I had seen as disappointment and loss.
I want to do another reading – can you share the spread you used?
I also appreciate your story about choosing a word. I was having a hard time with that until I came around to a way to have focus and meaning for my year. I’ll be posting that soon!
Thanks for your spirit-filled leadership. It’s a treat to read your writing.
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thanks Cynthia – your words land deeply and beautifully in my heart. Yes, I will share the spread and might as well make it a post for today, so it will show up in a few hours as such.
5 of cups – curious what the context was in your reading, where in the spread it showed up. Lots of people don’t like seeing 5s in their spread. We have this notion that it means bad things will happen and one of the reason I prefer Tarot of the Spirit to the traditional Waite/Smith Tarot is because of the images in the latter, that are plain old icky sometimes.
Everything must deconstruct just as everything must construct. It’s all part of the cycle, the ebb and flow. All creativity is born of chaos. Fives have a lot to do with recognizing (re-cognizing) who we really are. So, who we thought we were (usually our personality and ego ID) has to give way to some messy not-knowing (like the goo in the chrysalis) so that we can find ourselves anew.
Five of cups is about discernment. Cups are about the element of water which is the heart/emotions. It’s about overflowing and having now to decide what is no longer needed, no longer serving, and what is everlasting. There is an indication that the broken heart, the anger, resentment, whatever else is of that realm that is still held in the heart is ready to be released (it is overflowing). It’s a great time to process your emotions – the ones that may have been stuffed away for some time. To be with them and befriend them.
There are decisions to be made. Go ahead and cry over the spilled cups, and then let it go. Forgive and discover compassion. There are still cups standing. What is held there and what will you take with you?
It’s an exciting time. You are at a threshold.
Hope that helps.
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Thanks, Kathy, that’s helpful. That is one thing I came to last night – seeing it as a time to let go of some things to focus on others.
I feel ready to let go of past disappointments. I feel energized for the future!
Thanks for posting the spread – it looks great and I will do it.
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What a great word to have for 2011!
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Thanks Steve – and thanks for joining me on the Full Moon Path
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What a beautiful way to begin the year. Thank you for sharing it with us. Wishing you the most incredible year of co-creating with the Divine. Yum.
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My Unity church does a White Stone ceremony in which we choose stones from Jerusalem and are led through a meditation in which a word will (usually) come to us. This was my first time at the ceremony, and I loved it! My word came swiftly and surely before the meditation even began. I actually resisted it, but it persisted. And so “spirit” is my word for 2011 and I’m looking forward to exploring all the various permutations of it through journaling and meditation. Thanks for an inspiring post.
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Hi Charlotte – sounds like a wonderful ceremony and I love your story of receiving your word
right away and being aware of your resistance to it. Brava for choosing to trust your powerfully
fast intuition. Thank you for taking time to share it with us.
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