We’re at that trough of the year. This year has been one of challenge and setbacks for many. Transitions taking WAAAY too long. Great miracles and breakthroughs too.

Regardless of what your year’s theme has been, as we turn the wheel of the year, it’s time to regroup. Call forth a new version of yourself into being, as the old one clearly does not fit any more.

Maybe the adjustment is slight but potent, maybe it’s huge. That’s your call.

As we slide into the deep darkness of winter we’re surrounded by celebrations of returning light at Solstice, Christmas, Hanukkah and Kwanza. I naturally turn reflective about my year and also get curious about what is ahead of me. Reviewing what happened to have clarity about what I would like to create.

I imagine you might feel called this way as well. Do you have a year end ritual review? For many years now…10 or more….I’ve done a taking-stock exercise, and often offered it as a day retreat. I thought I’d share it in case you want to do something similar.

Give yourself several hours in chunks to really dive deep. Get hot tea or cocoa. Have treats nearby.

Harvest Your Year

Take out all your calendars, planners and on-line schedulers (Google, Outlook, etc.)

Light a candle and say a prayer, to enact a holy space. We want to bring kindness and compassion as well as clear eye to what your year was like, not just go by memory, which is notoriously short-sighted. (remember April? A trip you took 7 months ago? Not me either.)

  • Start back at January and move forward, making a list of what was notable each month. You might want to make note of: clients or work projects, meetings that were future-bearing, events you attended, programs or events you led. Noteworthy kid or family activities.  Creative projects (art, music, dance). Notable nights out. Trips taken, for business or pleasure; anything new added, or old that ended or dropped.
  • Then step back and ask a few questions:
    • Where do I have breakthroughs or clarity?
    • Where was there loss or disappointment?
    • Where is there energy that I want to keep moving forward?
    • What lacks energy that is time to let go or drop?
    • What do I bless and receive or bless and release?
  • Be sure to keep breathing, as this can bring up great joy or sadness. Meet both with gratitude if you can. Acknowledge what was hard or didn’t work out. Celebrate your wins
  • Now develop the key themes of the year—what what this year about, in a nutshell. Really boil it down to a few (not more than 5) themes.
  • Bless and release the year, knowing you did the best you could. Using some form of ritual to let it go (Say a short prayer, burn or shred the pages, sing or dance it out.)

Look Into the Future: Name and Claim Your New Year

(Just writing that feels exciting!)

This next piece can be done at a separate moment, once you have a chance to digest and harvest the past year.

  • Review your notes and themes. Feeling into what worked and what didn’t, ask yourself—and your guidance, if you have access—what do I want or sense  this next year to be about?
  • This isn’t about strategic planning but about developing an overarching intention or theme that taps into what you’d like your year to feel like. (due credit source: Isabel Parlett teaches this annually)
  • Sense into what is coming toward you. Allow yourself to receive impressions, the texture, color taste of the year you’d like to have. AS well as the one that is your destiny to experience.
    • Lean into what you’d like to experience more—and less—of.
  • Use those impressions to create themes. Identify overall intentions of what you’d like the year to feel like. (Perhaps you need new direction, or to be busier, or to slow down….)
  • Develop these broad dreams and visions of 2017 into more concrete any plans. Map it out on a calendar, if you desire.
  • Create a Vision Map for yourself, using collage from text, images, words or phrases. Put this in a prominent place so that it works on your unconscious. (To read more about this Vision Mapping process, see The Magdalene Path, page 125.)
  • Celebrate yourself for doing this process and for inviting the immenseness that is to come! Post these themes where you will remind yourself. I use the mirror in my office/studio and my business notebook.

Let me know how this process goes!

Hey, if you need help working through any part of this, or see that  there’s clearing to do to get next year off to a great start, perhaps a session or two would be helpful? I’m offering a Buy One,Get One Special–something I’ve never done! You get 2 sessions and you pay my single session price of $200. My holiday gift to support your emerging goddessness.

Enjoy this mystical time of what has been and what is to come,

 

PS Though it’s getting late for Christmas delivery, there’s still a few Goddess Coloring Book kits left. does one have your name on it? See details and purchase proecess below. This is an email-only offer, no website, sales pages, nothing. Simple, easy and direct through PayPal, from me to you and yours. Check it out…