New Year’s Eve/Day. It’s kinda some bullshit, innit? Not the existence of the day itself, obviously it exists, it’s a global event that impacts every country/culture on the planet. But, it’s still some bullshit. Allow me to elaborate….
I have always hated New Year’s Eve for various reasons over the years but one of the biggest, most enduring, reasons is the immense pressure placed on taking stock of the previous year and setting those resolutions for the coming year. I hate that. I really really hate that. If you’re someone that already struggles with mental health issues or depression during the holiday season, it can actually be detrimental to your mental health to sit around and think about the last year. It can also make it very challenging to look towards the coming year with any kind of genuine hope in what it might bring. Meanwhile, all around you, people are partying, everyone is doing their “end of year” wrap up/recap, setting those girl boss resolutions, “Hashtag 2024 is going to be MY year!”
Meanwhile, for me (and many like me, I’ve come to find), the only thing NYE really means is that we have to write a new number on the date. That’s it. It’s the same reality as when I went to sleep. The world didn’t hit a magical reset button. Don’t get it twisted, I’m not here to yuck anyone’s yum. If you enjoy NYE and feel a strong energetic connection to the change over of the Gregorian calendar year, that’s cool. I would never tell anyone not to celebrate whatever the hell they want and I hope you had a fantastic New Year.
I’m just saying for me (and, again, many like me) there is a lot of unnecessary pressure placed on an arbitrary date with zero astrological significance. And that segues into my next beef with New Year’s. The date. There is nothing special about January 1st other than that’s the day we decided we were going to start marking a new date. One could argue that that, in and of itself, makes the date special/significant, since everything is made up, and they aren’t wrong perse.
There are just better dates with actual astrological significance that would make much more sense (in my opinion) for observing the New Year. In fact, the Winter Solstice was actually considered the start of the New Year “back in the day” (for you pagans that like to try to do everything the Ye Olde Way). It was only the switch to the Gregorian calendar fuckery that caused New Year to be shifted to January 1st (which could explain why everyone feels so out of place/time and discombobulated the week between Christmas and New Year). And that’s just in the Western World. Eastern cultures still observe New Year as a lunar holiday that occurs in early February. I am personally happy with either of those dates/scenarios as they are both based on astrological events that make some kind of symbolic sense for why we would choose to mark the new year at that time and, for me, everything boils down to what the stars are doing.
I get that, as a global community, it makes sense that we would need a standardized date to switch over (considering the Southern hemisphere is celebrating the Summer Solstice in December), I do get it. But I’m still going to dig my heels in on the idea that a better date could have been chosen. Anyway, I digress…
What it boils down to is I just don’t like the vibe that comes along with the modern celebration of New Year’s Eve (and many other holidays for that matter) and for a long time I thought I was alone in that thought but I have actually heard from many people for whom NYE is a depressing holiday and even brings about a sense of doom for some. Of course I’ve done my fair share of NYE partying but it was really more of an excuse to party and a distraction from my usual NYE depression. Yes, I am one of the people for whom NYE tends to be more depressing than anything. Rarely does looking back on the previous year yield the wave of gratitude currently flooding my social media feed, nor do I feel the need to set a New Year’s resolution.
And that leads me to the final reason I do not particularly care for NYE. The New Year’s Resolution. The way we go about it is obnoxious. You pick one finite goal and determine that you have exactly 12 months from that point to achieve this very specific goal. Now, if you have a very specific dream, and are someone that excels with a definitive deadline, this may work for you. But for most people the resolution doesn’t last beyond the first 2 to 3 weeks into January and now it’s just another failed goal to reflect on next New Year. It’s such a common scenario the “failed resolution” is something of a joke nowadays. Yes, let’s start the new year by setting ourselves up for failure, super funny.
For me it just makes it another task that I HAVE to do and, let me tell you, I really hate being told I HAVE to do anything, even if it’s myself doing the telling. I also find the construct of the “New Year’s resolution” to be rather narrow in focus and doesn’t often allow for evolution of the goal in question. So, rather than setting a New Year’s Resolution, I far prefer to conjure a New Year’s Dream.
Within my personal practices, I do not equate the Winter Solstice with the return of the Sun. Yes, I know the days are starting to get longer, even if only incrementally, from the point of Solstice, but where I live in NE Ohio, we are still very much in the dark part of the year. We will not truly see the “return of the light” until the Spring Equinox. The energy of the Winter Solstice is very much that of the “Midnight” of the Year, that liminal point when we go from today to tomorrow, or this year to the next, and likely why the Solstice was/is often considered the astrological New Year. In my practices this is the Dreamtime of the Year. If you are the type of pagan that likes to tie the holidays back to the growing cycle, these are the dreams that will become the seeds you plant in the Spring.
Why a Dream instead of a Resolution? Dreams don’t have to take a specific route, they can morph, change, and evolve, as we move throughout the Year and we and the circumstances/world around us change and evolve. And, once set in motion, there’s no true time limit on when a dream can/should manifest. I don’t find it nearly as limiting a mindset as a resolution which often has a very specific linear path to achievement. A dream can become anything it needs to be. There’s no pressure and, also, no limits.
As an example of what I mean, one very common New Year’s resolution is to lose weight/get in shape (they might say get in shape/healthy, but it’s usually approached with the mindset that the way to be in shape/healthy is to lose weight/work out). That’s great for some people, but isn’t going to work for a lot of folks, and when they have to stop the unrealistic (for them) diet and work out regime, that’s just another failure they have to tally at the end of the year.
Rather than set a resolution to lose weight/get in shape, you could perhaps conjure the Dream of overall health and being happy within one’s own being/loving one’s physical self no matter it’s state. You might be rolling your eyes, thinking that’s how you get healthy, by working out and losing weight, but (spoiler alert) that’s not necessarily going to help everyone achieve overall health and well-being depending on where they are at in their journey. Sure, you could just as easily phrase the resolution in the same way and still consider it a resolution, but I believe how we phrase things matters, it helps to shape our individual perception of things and I would much rather perceive a dream of overall well-being than have a self-inflicted mandate to work out.
Maybe at the end of the year you only lost a little weight but you made significant changes in your food choices that will contribute to long term heath and you managed to change your relationship with food to a healthier dynamic. There is ZERO failure in that. In fact, those are some pretty amazing achievements. But if you’re locked into the idea that your goal is to lose weight and become physically fit, by those standards, you would have failed. No one needs that shit, especially coming from ourselves.
Back in the way back days, when I was still conducting public Sabbat rituals for the local pagans, I would talk about the Winter being the Dreamtime of the year and, as part of the ritual working, I handed out those white emergency candles that had been “dressed” for the occasion. The idea was to use the candle as a tool for Winter meditation/shadow work; a light to guide you into the darkness of the Self/Midnight of the Year where all dreams are possible, where you decide what you want your reality to be and those dreams you wish to see made manifest in the coming year. Also, witches just love candles, amirite?
The world is a dark fucking place right now. Horrors that we can not even comprehend in our part of the world are being inflicted on people every day. Even here in the U.S. where we aren’t being bombarded with bombs every single day life is becoming more of a struggle. Hope is in very short supply. There’s no need to put even more pressure on yourself to achieve a specific goal when we have no idea what is going to happen over the next year, things may very easily occur that are out of our control, and if the only tangible thing you manage to achieve over the next year is to get through it in tact and still fighting, that’s fucking amazing.
Instead of a resolution, maybe just light yourself a candle and dare to dream.
“For only in dreams can men be truly free. T’was always thus, and always thus will be.”-Mr. Keating, Dead Poet’s Society.
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