2014: Out with the Old

We’re more than a week into 2015. I’m not usually late, ever, for anything, even with three kids. But this time? Late. It was that kind of year.

I returned in the middle of the night from a week in Florida visiting my sister and her girls. It was just me and the baby. My expectations for my vacation were a little like this: eat really well, go walking every day, take the baby to the pool with my nieces, see all the things, write all the writing, read an actual book or three.

Here is what I did: go walking a few times, drink a lot of wine, eat some cupcakes, read/skim one really awful book on Indian witchcraft, watch the entire first season of Veronica Mars on Netflix (and yes, I’d already seen it all before), watch some home improvement shows, spend way too much time on Facebook. I did manage to complete my collage for the year to come.

New Year’s collages are my one tradition for this “holiday.” I explained a little bit about this tradition last year. How did my 2014 collage turn out? Once again rather accurate, though not as much as the previous year.

Last year’s collage was based on a tarot reading I did for my year. My reading was more accurate than the collage.

2014 was a rough year, and my tarot reading suggested it might be. Based on the cards, I had feared that I would be beset with post-partum depression. Thankfully, that was not what happened.

While there were some wonderful gifts this year, each was rather stressful. My husband and I bought our first house. It’s cozy and perfect for us, but the process of buying a house is incredibly stressful! I gave birth to my third child, the night we moved into our new house. Yeah, that was a little stressful! But the birth was short (2 hours) and sweet. I spent most of 2014 basically parenting and adjusting to the new parameters of my life.

In the late spring I learned that my spiritual teacher was very ill. Deep down I knew that he would not come through, but I held out hope. He did not survive, dying in the fall. I was able to be with him only an hour after his passing. That was a true gift, though his absence is yawning chasm in my life.

According to my reading my fall was supposed to be the beginning of intense spiritual and magical work,

which you can see represented by the lower right corner of the collage. I don’t look back and see much magic in my fall but I started making small, subtle changes in my practice, from which much fruit will likely grow. For example, I took a month off from my devotions after my teacher died. I hadn’t so thoroughly stepped away from my practices before. I also had two very detailed divinations done, which clarified a couple of very important things. First, I am establishing a new relationship with Bhairava, one of the manifestations of Shiva. (I have not talked about this yet, but will do in the weeks to come.) I had been feeling some one around the edges, drawn to deeper work in my Hindu practices. While this was not who or what I was expecting, I am not altogether surprised.

Secondly, I was told that I needed to pursue my writing. I have an idea for a book and one of the divinations strongly urged me to pursue it.

I ended 2014 stressed out and decidedly not well. I am terrible at resting and my week in Florida at the start of this year drove that fact home. 2014 was far more taxing on me, physically, emotionally, and spiritually, than I realized. And this post doesn’t even mention the many upsetting political and social issues that impacted my family (Ferguson and issues of racism).

My next post is going to look ahead to 2015, and then we’ll get back to our regularly scheduled posts about mysticism, polytheism, theology, books, ideas, and general Paganism.

Good bye 2014! Ten days later I’m ready to embrace 2015.