Start Close In....Words for the real New Year?

Lunar New Year

Start close in,

don't take the second step

or the third,

start with the first

thing

close in,

the step you don't want to take…….

Dearest All,

Greetings and love from the jungle over here to wherever in the world you are.

Holidays and ‘official’ New Year

I’ve been deep in many process’ over the last period, I feel, like so many others, that the most recent times have been but a blur. I blinked my eyes, the holidays passed, and here we are well into the ‘official’ New Year of 2023.

Inwards vs Outwards

And yet….I have always had an underlying felt sense that the Xmas phase and beyond were really designed for recharging, my own energy often at odds with the outwardly celebratory crescendo of our Gregorian calendar.

In the past I’ve felt strange for wanting to unplug while everything else seems to be amping up, but this time around I let it happen, I entered a kind of hibernation. Even here in the tropics that I call home, winter having just finished, I went inwards, deeply cocooning in home and rest.

Nature’s wisdom at this turning

What occurs to me is that in most of the Northern Hemisphere around the solstice and ongoing now; seedlings are deep underground in their suspended ‘in-between’: they’re taking time to slowly onboard and integrate the information first needing to be digested before ‘Spring’-ing forth.

This is what I finally allowed myself to do also, my body and spirit breathed a sigh of relief.

‘New Year’ of the Lunar cycles

So at this particular threshold, the Lunar New Year today on 22nd January (post the first new moon of our calendar year), also celebrated as Chinese New Year, I urge you to take a moment to unplug and go inside, searching for your own deep seeds of what wants to take shape for you over time…And what they may need to best flourish.

Some methods to plug inwards

You can use journaling, yoga nidra, meditation practices, breath work, drawing, movement inquiry, walking contemplation or just sitting in nature itself to investigate what lies in your inner landscape, I simply ask of you to remain curious to what may come in; it might well surprise or delight you in unexpected ways! Invite room for this by staying open. Invite enjoyment with your investigations :)

And then…..

Begin at the beginning with that which is closest….

I have found much solace in simplicity during ‘these times’, I find personally, the bite sized energy for baby steps sometimes suits much better than huge grand visions….And thus my gift of this beautiful David Whyte poem about just that, I offer with much love and hope in my heart.

Go well friends. Stay simple & slow as and when you can.

Pennie x