A year end ritual

A year end ritual

A promise
in the winter darkness:
the calycanthus

The end of the year is always a special time in wich we are full of expectations. A desire of light, fragrance and novelty arises. Usually at this time I prepare a very ambitious (mental) list of good intentions, but perhaps also a bit away from my real feeling, which I then lose as if it was a simple shopping list. Actually, I believe that the most lasting changes are those that happen spontaneously, from the heart. The head has nothing to do with it. It’s like the scent of the calycanthus in the middle of the winter. Let's look for this fragrance, a promise of spring. At first it seems out of place, but it's actually there to be picked up as a signal. 
Today in the afternoon I sat down for a moment on my own in front of the window and I reflected on what was positive about 2018. It's been a year of challenges, but maybe every year it is. Going back over the days, weeks and months, there was a common thread and it was that of poetry, especially haikus: I read and wrote a lot of them. I published several of them on my Instgram page, others I kept for myself, bringing them with me during the most intense working days in the bookstore, especially those crazy pre-Christmas days. Those in which the connection with my creative and dreamy part has become thin and slender until I almost forgot it. Poetry has saved me more than once, it has kept me afloat, it has brought me closer to my authentic part, to my unconscious. During the year I also discovered another part of myself, the part that feels the need for rituals. And this day seemed to me to be a good time to prepare one. I built a small boat with light, a bit of nature and a sheet of paper where I wrote what I want to welcome in 2019. Then I took it to the lake and let it go, confidently. There were two swans waiting: they looked like two angels who took care of my desires, escorting them until the realization. 
Once back I wrote on a postcard my good purpose, which at the same time is a desire of the heart: to have more confidence, to move in life with less fear and more presence. It's not little, I realize, but it's in my hands. It's a choice, after all. Every time I feel fear for something, I can connect to trust and to present time. I hung the postcard on the wall in front of my desk, where I can look at it every time I want. 
Now I return to the calycanthus, to the promise of spring that I feel in its frangrance, to the spring that can exist even in the darkness of winter, to the trust that can arise from fear, and I set off peacefully in the new year.