My 2013 Collage Review

New Year’s Eve means one thing for me: collaging. I’m not much of a crowd person, so I rarely go out in public on New Year’s Eve. Even before I had kids I mostly stayed in and went to bed at my typical early  hour. For the last six or seven years I have used this night to make magic. I collage.

I can’t remember how I came up with this idea. Did I see it in some women’s magazine? Did some one put an ‘inspirational’ post on Facebook? I have no idea, but I do know that now my New Year’s collage is one of the the most potent acts of magic I do all year. At first, the collage posters of what I wanted more of in my new year were merely an aspirational tool, a physical visualization posted on my fridge that I could see daily and remind myself of the direction I wanted to go. But when Big Things started coming to pass – for example, a trip to Australia that I didn’t have to pay for – I started taking the collage much more seriously.

Last year I tried something new with my collage. I did a tarot reading for the year and mapped it out visually. You can read about it here.

So what came to pass? EVERYTHING. In fact, this reading and collage is so accurate that I’m a little spooked to do it again. Shouldn’t a witch be excited that her divination prowess is improving and accurate? Yes, but 2013 was a gut punch of a year and, according to the one astrologer I pay attention to, 2014 is on track for more of the same. Mercy!

I started my 2013 cutting off yet another relationship. A disintegration, that certainly cut me, and possibly them (who knows?), where I bleed most easily. I actually took three vacations this year, one on my own, which had profound consequences for me and my marriage, and two kid-free weekend trips to Portland with my husband. I faced some serious demons, deepened my reservoir of strength, fell more in love with my chosen spiritual traditions, went through a dedication rite, and found an outlet for singing. I got a king-sized bed and began taking rest more seriously, including making it a habit to spend 10 hours in bed every night. I did indeed conceive my third (and final) child.

My year was one of accepted introversion. The various kinds of challenges to every aspect of my relational life meant that I have been spending more time alone. I have been embracing my radical qualities and working on the central ideas of WAKING UP and NOT HIDING.

Actually, one thing did not come to pass. I didn’t go to India. The tv show on pilgrimages that I was going to be in never made it off the ground. I’m not actually all that disappointed by this. I feel very neutral about it not happening.

Tonight I’ll collage for 2014 and post about it in the days to come. May your mid-winter celebration, your looking ahead to the year of growing light, your turning of the calendrical page be a joyous, auspicious, and safe one for you and yours.