It is the winter solstice, darkest day of the year.

I have taken the little glazed pottery pinch bowl I made in jr high art class and put some sand in there that I collected from the beach in New Jersey. I've lit a charcoal puck and I'm burning a bit of frankincense and myrrh resin that they sell in bulk at the good health food store (which means it was only a couple bucks to buy just a little). I've put disposable shower caps over the smoke detectors so they won't freak out.

(I've become somewhat uncomfortable with burning sage. It's just not my cultural tradition, I guess, so I don't want to be a "taker" and borrow things just because they sound good coming from some woo-woo influencer with a pastel balayage and a tarot deck bought off amazon. So I've switched to the frankincense and myrrh even though I don't really have ties to that tradition either, but whatever. It's christmassy, so there. I'm burning a smelly plant based thing.)

I wanted to do a little cleansing and thought exercise today, just as a mental reset for the coming year. So I cracked all the windows and took my bowl of burning incense around the apartment, saying my affirmation and letting the smoke get into all the corners. It's awkward, talking to yourself, but I do it anyway. The cats look confused.

"I am grateful for my teachers and I surrender the patterns that are no longer serving me."

I felt inspired to sit down and write a bit more on this - just stream of consciousness.

All living things must change and evolve and grow. To be stagnant and fixed is to be dead. Therefore all things have a moment of service and a moment to be put aside. There is no shame in transitioning from one thing to the next. Let go of the weight of responsibility to ideas that have served their purpose. Not all creations must be realized. Not all categories and judgements are fixed. To understand this is to be alive, and to grant yourself freedom. Understanding your own freedom is the first step to actually being free.

Let go of the idea of wrongs and bad choices. All actions are learning actions. Even the brightest idea must dim eventually, and come to the end of its teaching. You cannot cling to one brilliant moment and expect it to shine forever. Remember that the fire is in you - you are the lightmaker. Do not worship the candle that burns with the light that you kindled, depleting your energy trying to keep it lit. Start more fires, knowing they will burn out eventually, and that is the cost of being alive.

All living things die. All living ideas reach the end of their usefulness, and then we are called to bury them. Do not make your home in corpses. Be where there is life, contribute to it, but do not think yourself indebted and force yourself to stay. Slavery happens when you chain yourself to an outcome, when you make yourself work with what is dead. You were not meant to be enslaved. Leave what is dead. Let it rest. It's okay. Everything alive knows this. Only those who are enslaved will begrudge you.

Just as winter flows into summer, that which is dead becomes fertile ground for new life. Let yourself rest, let yourself let go, learn to appreciate what is alive and respect what has served its purpose. Nothing is wasted. Nothing is wasted. Nothing is wasted. Not even your unseen struggle, not the toils that seem to bear no fruit. Your only mistake is punishing yourself over things you perceive as failures, instead of choosing gratitude for the experience. Nobody knows the weave of the thread of your life - the stops and starts and even the tangles. There are no mistakes. The sooner you understand, the sooner you choose life, the sooner you will come to meet and know yourself.

Take the knowledge you have gathered - it is a seed you can plant again, and grow new ideas, new life, a new garden. Take the seed, let the things that no longer serve you pass on. Accept the outcome for what it is, but do not it enslave you. You are alive, and change is what you must accept to stay that way.