sun_set_bravely | Phone Post

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(LJ said that the text was too long for the transcription space, so here it is.)

I've waited to post my first Live Journal entry of 2004 because I've been crazy busy at work, and because I want the words to be right. I want to say how the changing of the year has never felt as important to me as it does this year. I've never looked forward to a clean calendar with such hope and faith. This New Year's, all of the old rituals seemed more meaningful -- finishing old chores and business before the 31st, dressing up to go out with friends to party, eating black eyed peas on New Year's Day for good luck. Clearing my heart of old guilt and anger, and starting anew with grace and forgiveness for myself.

This year I needed something to mark the passing of the old year, the crossing of that threshold. Something to commemorate, and something to honor everything that's gone past. Most years the new year rolled by without event, without occasion. maybe I had someone to kiss; maybe I didn't. It really didn't matter, because I always felt a little silly and out of touch with the grand celebration. This year, it mattered.

The party's music was mediocre and halting but I looked hot and the company was bountiful. A toast was given, and for the first time, I felt the importance of the open landscape of a new year.

It matters in the way that the almost full moon matters tonight, shining over DeKalb avenue. Lining the clouds with a little bit of pale gray, and highlighting Mars, or whatever planet that is right next to the moon. The moon's beauty mark, I like to call it.

~ ~ ~

Today is Epiphany. It commemorates the day that the wise men reached the Baby Jesus, back in the day. It's also the end of the 12 days of Christmas, which I learned this year begins on the 25th of December, not before. I always thought the 12 days of Christmas counted down to the 25th, but in fact they count between the 25th and Epiphany, January 6th. This is the actual Christmas season, not the secular, you know, any day after July is Christmas.

Epiphany. "A sudden, intuitive perception of or insight into the reality or essential meaning of something, usually initiated by some simple, homely or commonplace occurrence or experience."

By that definition, my 2003 was essentially one long, painful epiphany. My everyday reality shifted drastically several times, sending me on a big fat journey. It's not over. But I've rounded the corner, and it's time to come home. To myself. To love.

~ ~ ~

This morning I woke up with the sun and laid out my past year in front of me. Looked it over, breathed it out, and took a shower. While I washed 2003 away, I looked at 2004. Big things are coming my way. How do I know? Because, for one of the first times in my life, I feel like my life is my own, and simultaneously that my life is following a path I can't always see, but I can trust. I feel the solid weight of my joints resting in their sockets. I feel my future in my hands, and I know now that whatever dream I want, I have to go get it. And that's a good thing.

I'm making 2004 a conscious year. Where I elucidate my dreams for myself and take full responsibility for making them happen.

~ ~ ~

      I don't think I ever posted about an auspicious dream I had this summer. I spent the night at an acquaintance's quiet country cottage, with a firefly in my bedroom. In my dream, many unicorns huddled in the middle of a stormy ocean, and a man stood in the center of their group, as if he were going to conjure something. But then an enormous hand came down from above with a huge soup ladle and held everyone -- all the unicorns and the man -- underwater until they drowned. It was terrifying -- the ocean where they'd been was suddenly a still, glassy surface.
      Later in my dream, I sat on my bed, and a young girl of maybe 10 or 11 with brown eyes and shoulder-length brown hair, came into my room holding two of the unicorns in her small palm. They were tiny, tiny, but they were alive.
      She said, "I brought them back to life."

The morning after that dream, my two friends and I visited a children's bookstore, and on my way to the bathroom, I saw a card with two unicorns on the front, holding glowing paper lanterns with fireflies inside. I bought the card. Of course. How's that for synchronicity?

~ ~ ~

Tonight, I sit on my bed, wrapped in pajamas and an old terry cloth robe. Twelve unlit tea-light candles line my windowsill, one for every month of 2004. In a minute, I'll turn off my lamp and light each one, while saying a prayer for the open space of each month. The promise of my year will bring light into my dark room, and I'll laugh at the fireflies of present and future joy.

Welcome to 2004 everyone. May it bring abundant blessings to all of you.