Fast Away the Old Year Passes

a vision between the years

Dec 28, 2023

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Father Time and Baby New Year, AI-generated art, Jan Blencowe ©2023

I stepped outside this morning, and it felt like spring. It was mild, and there was fog; it had rained overnight, and the fragrance of fertile, damp earth filled the air. Birds called to one another across the woods. I noticed that some of the crocus and daffodils were pushing through the ground. However, the spring-like atmosphere is just an illusion, as Shakespeare has Hamlet utter, "The time is out of joint."

The waning year is unusual not just because of the weather but because this is a time outside of time. We know something, some esoteric bit of knowledge or some ancient memory that we can't quite recall, like a dream that slips away in the morning light; there's something about this time at the end of the year.

There are many endings and beginnings of little years within our calendar year, like fiscal and academic years and Samhain marking the end of the agricultural year.

January became the first month of the year around 450 BC in the Roman Republic. In Europe, March 25, a date close to the vernal equinox, hung on in many places as the beginning of the year among the farmers and peasants. However, the official calendars displayed were in the Roman fashion, with columns of months beginning in January and ending in December. By the 16th century, even Europe had switched to January 1 as the beginning of the year.

We have inherited a strong memory and sense that the year ends on December 31, and a new year begins on January 1.

Each year becomes an energy unto itself, made up of all the good and bad events that have occurred within its bounds. We know this personally by what has happened in our lives so that we may have a personal name for each year. The year we moved, The Year I retired, The year so-and-so died, The year of traveling, The year I became....

Before you rush to find your word for the year or make a New Year’s Resolution, I advise you to reflect on the past year and discern the most significant happening, which will forever lend its designation to your remembrance of 2023.

As the year, now named and understood as an energetic entity, comes to a close, we can consciously accompany it as it passes away. The year is on its deathbed, and this is a liminal time.

These twelve days hold potency, whether the 12 Days of Christmas or the 12 Nights of Solstice. The thing we call time, marked by the passage of hours and minutes, days and nights, is shimmering, dissolving, and reconstituting at a threshold along a boundary between one year and the next.

Like the Roman god Janus, who lends his name to January and has two faces, one looking forward and one looking backward, we can perceive the mystery of time by looking at the past and future simultaneously.

These twelve days, December 25 through January 6, span the old year and the new and offer us a bridge or a passage from one energetic space to the next in the form of years dying and being born.

These twelve days break away from ordinary time and float between realities, past and future, no longer and not yet. Thus, they are a powerful time for dreaming, creating, seeking messages, miracles, and more.

I encourage you to use this time for silence and serious yet calm, detached reflection and visioning that opens you to receiving wisdom from the past year and sparks curiosity about where the future is leading you.

To help you with this, you can download a Year End Reflection Guide I created.

One of the things that's become an essential part of engaging with the energy of the end of the year for me is creating a 12 Nights of Solstice Art Journal. I do this with Cat Caracelo from JourneyPath Institute, where I received training and certification as a creative depth coach and personal mentor for many years.

This is my ninth year, and the creation of the journal has always been a profound experience, helping me understand my personal mythology, my evolving beliefs, and the accumulation of personal symbols that build my visual vocabulary so I can better express my inner life through images and art.

It still needs to be finished, as the journal I used had fifteen-page spreads. There are the actual twelve nights of Solstice, plus I used one for preparation and one for the actual night of Solstice, and there's one yet to be done, which will be for visioning into the new year. Then, I will have to create the cover art.

Many of you have enquired about my art journaling and collage work, so I'd like to share a look at this work in progress. Float and drift with the images and see if any have something to say to you. Images are universal and are loaded with collective symbolism.

Working with images, symbols, colors, and textures is a potent way to explore your inner world. It supplies the depth in creative depth work. I've discovered so much about who I truly am by doing this kind of work.

If you have questions about creative depth work, drop them in the comments.

I will use my 12 Nights of Solstice Journal with Tarot, using each page and card drawn to represent each of the twelve months of the year, a microcosm/ macrocosm relationship. In this way, I will use this mystical, liminal time to challenge myself to understand better what is calling me forward in 2024. Who am I becoming, what should I be doing, and how should I change and evolve are questions I will work with. This is divination, messages from the divine, at its finest.

I'm now offering 7 Card and 12 Card Year Ahead Readings during the remainder of this week and through the first week of the new year; see below for booking.

I'm also offering special blended Tarot Coaching sessions that combine Jungian informed Depth Coaching and Tarot Readings to help you sort out your current self and situation, identify what is diminishing, and most importantly, who you are becoming and where you are going. The Four Session Bundle is a great place to begin, with more extended, in-depth packages available. We’ll meet for an hour and a half via Zoom and explore together the images on the cards, their meanings as they pertain to you and your situation, and the questions on your heart and mind. Please contact me directly to discuss your needs and for package pricing.

What would you name 2023? What do you hope for in 2024? How will you use this special "time outside of time" to better understand the meaning and purpose of this season of your life?

The comments section is a safe and welcoming space to share your insights and experiences.

Comments and conversation are always appreciated and enjoyed, so feel free to let your voice be heard. I read them all and try to respond to each one.

Thank you for reading Hedge Mystic and participating in this vibrant and growing community of creative, spiritual humans. You are always welcome here, appreciated, and loved.

Fast Away the Old Year Passes

a vision between the years

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