Lately I find myself unmotivated to write much. Actually, that’s not true; I’m writing a lot. I’ve been journaling daily, writing letters, and of course the never ending cascade of emails. Most days I feel as though all I do, all day long is communicate and then double back to ensure the communication landed well. By evening I’m just done saying anything at all - verbal or written. Not only that but it feels like, for now, there’s nothing new to say and that many of us are just shouting out into the Universe in hopes that someone, anyone, is listening. Maybe I’m having an existential crisis of writing. But I keep returning to what I know - consistency of practice eventually leads to shifts in perspective. Sometimes its incremental, sometimes its all at once, but the last year of consistent habit building has yielded some incredible results.
So here we are.
In my journal I write a lot about transition and change. My family is swimming in a giant vat of transition right now, a great big realignment and while it’s fascinating to watch pieces click into place, it’s also disconcerting to feel uncertain about things that seemed certain until just recently. Graduations, career shifts, marriages, starting new educational paths, growing up, moving out, moving on…these are all things on the horizon, big swells of change and none of it certain to end the way we hope. That’s the hard part.
If you’ll remember my word for the 2023 is Restore, which gets more interesting as the year moves along and so many things aren’t snapping back to form, but evolving into new shapes and ideas. I wondered at the outset what form this journey would take and so far - though there is plenty of year left, still - it’s much more of an internal focus than an external manifestation. Unintentionally, I’ve started a new practice every month. I didn’t see it as a monthly pattern until I was recently reviewing the first quarter of the year. These practices and rituals don’t mean aren’t unique or groundbreaking, or even very exciting to anyone besides me, but each time I work through them, I feel more myself. I remember who I am. In a time of great uncertainty, coming back to a daily ritual restores my soul and reminds me that even when the path isn’t clear, I can depend on myself to find the way.
I’ve always been fascinated by ritual. When I practiced christianity, I was fascinated by the liturgical year and the concept of praying the hours. It wasn’t the praying or celebrating that captivated me, rather I was compelled by the way those practices are a means of orienting the self in time and space, a spiritual reset and a map to follow. I find the same sort of comfort in the pagan practice of following the wheel of the year. Season follows season, each with its place and purpose, both symbolically and literally.
The same true on a smaller scale with my growing set of daily practices. Each one links me to the day before while already anticipating the day to come. Each one reminds me who I am, where I am, how I am and even why I am. When I can’t predict where any of us will be in a year, I know that today I will journal, practice yoga, write a letter, take a walk. I will connect with my self, my body, someone I love, and the world around me. Like four points of a compass, these practices orient me over and over again.
I’d love to be able to say that these four practices - who knows what next month will add to the mix, but I’ll probably be writing about it soon - are the magical four things which make life better. They are for me, but that doesn’t mean they will be for anyone else. Unfortunately there are no magic formulas. We all have to try things and fail, and restart, and give up, and try something new or try again over and over. These things work for me today. Next year, it may be a completely different ritual that works its restorative magic.
I was fortunate to attend a spring equinox ritual last month where we planted seeds and with those seeds, intention. That was around the time I stepped away from social media in order to cultivate some peaceful, intentional space. My intention, my word of intention, when I planted the seeds was “perspective.” Funny thing about perspective is that in order to gain a new one, something has must change. Whether it’s internal or external, perspective doesn’t change when things are stagnant. It’s funny the way the Universe prepares us sometimes with just the gentlest of whispers, probably because she knew if she yelled, Buckle up, Buttercup! Shit’s about to get wild again! I would have curled into the fetal position and crawled weeping into a corner.
Instead, I feel like I’m on some sort of wild ride but instead of hating every second, I have my hands thrown up and my head thrown back, scared out of my mind and having a marvelous time. And when things seem more scary than adventurous, I lean into my rituals, find my center, and take off again.