Did You Feel The New Year Arrive?

I had not intended to stay up late to see out the old year. I had done my ceremonies to release all that will not serve me, my family and friends, humanity and all living beings in the year ahead. I had placed in the fire my list of regrets — experiences where I had not lived with integrity, compassion and honor. I had called back all of my projections and assumptions that might have diminished any person, creature or structure on this beautiful planet. All that work of preparing for the transition was complete. And then I looked for videos of how people were celebrating the New Year, and I was enchanted at humanities creativity and exuberance.

I watched the streaming of fireworks displays from around the world, presented by various world news services. It began in Auckland, New Zealand with fireworks leaping from its Sky Tower for over 5 minutes, creating the effect of an Olympic torch flaming one bright color and then the next. When it shifted to Sydney Harbor in Australia I was flooded with the joy and playful exhilaration I have often missed during this past year. The combination of music and the play of lights, fireworks and colors was amazing. There were light displays and fireworks from the top and sides of the bridge, with more fireworks and sparklers from all over the area meeting in the sky. The feeling was of generosity, exuberance, lavish inclusion… It was a marvelous flood of energies that swept through me. In place of the tight and restricted feeling I have felt in waves this past year, there was an exhibitionist freedom of just putting color and light out there for all to see. There was a throwing off of shackles, and an invitation to creativity and generosity of spirit.

I do not know what form of technology was used to create the display up the side of a building in Dubai, but it was flowing magic. It celebrated nature with butterflies and flowers as well as creating inviting and nurturing patterns of all kinds. The fireworks which shot out from the sides were all part of a choreographed dance of color and light that seemed to sweep through my being to cleanse, clear and enliven every cell of my body. Such creativity and lavish expression of joy is a rare gift in a world which has at times seemed so closed down in dread, fear and scarcity.

It was, however, the display with drones and fireworks over London, presented by the BBC, which left me sobbing. The clear message of gratitude for the National Health Service, and for the way people had come together to face the pandemic. Their expression of “One voice, one message: Black Lives Matter,” felt clean and clear, without any question of this being true. The fireworks over the Tower Bridge were also beautiful and full of life. Their final message was a call to change and to work together to turn things around in the year ahead to enhance life on this planet for all its inhabitants.

I know that some of the displays I watched over that hour may have been computer simulations, but even there the creativity remains. Maybe it is just my willingness to welcome all signs of new energy, light and color flooding in as we turn our calendar to a new year.

Your experience of the new year may be entirely different from mine. We each view the world through our own internal filters and find unique messages that pertain to our own lives in the moment. For me, it was a wild and wonderful invitation into the new year. It is no small matter to shift my perception from small, limited and restrained to empowered, generous and free to give all that I am here to share.

May your new year be filled with all the power of your soul, and all of the love of the Sacred Mystery which enlivens us all.

Joy and Peace along your Path,

Nancy