Ending the Year in Darkness

As this year comes closer to ending so the moon matches it, waning until, on almost the last day of this year, the dark moon will rise for the final time of 2016.  As the year approaches its demise and the moon shrinks from view my thoughts are matching it, turning ever darker and more pessimistic.

Like many others I tend to erroneously think that everything is somehow contained within a single year.  A bad year will surely end with the year, the new year is a promise of something better.  It rarely works out this way, and yet we continue to hope, we continue to see the years end as the end of everything that happened within that year.  But this year is different for me, this year I am not seeing this hope.  And so my mind and thoughts grow darker, hope waning alongside the moons light.

I expect nothing special from 2017.

But I have no desire to drown my readers in the darkness of my cynicism, instead I will focus on a different darkness – not of me, nor within me, but that of the moon.

Here in Australia the dark moon, astronomical new moon, will occur on the evening of the 29th, almost the end of the year but not quite.  The moon will enter its new waxing period on the final days of the year and the new year will begin with the growing light of the moon.

I am going to do something I rarely do, I am going to extend my observances of the dark moon so that it falls over and into New Years Eve and begin 2017 with my observances of the new moon and the Noumenia. Normally I would begin the Deipnon on the evening of the 29th and continue it through on the 30th, it’s not such a stretch to keep it going until the evening of the 31st, at which point I will begin my Noumenia practices.  What I will be doing this month will be a fair mix of Hellenic practices and general witchery, expect little traditional stuff here.

Night of the 29th

This will be reserved for the usual Deipnon ritual of Hekates Supper left at the crossroads.  You can read about it in detail in my post from earlier this year.  But basically, I will do some cleaning of my shrine and altar and the area around those, I will make an offering of food to Hekate, and leave that offering and the stuff cleaned off the altar and shrine at my crossroads for Her and for the Restless Dead.

It’s summer and daylight savings here, so it will be pretty late by the time I even start the Deipnon and as such I will probably do little more than the usual ritual that night.

All of Friday the 30th

The day of the Deipnon is generally reserved for cleaning and finishing things off, so some of my time will be spent cleaning.  I actually have to start packing up all the stuff in my house, in preparation to move, so today I will also continue doing that and most especially finding stuff to get rid of – whether things to throw out or things to donate.  A wonderful time to go through all of my clothes, that wardrobe really needs to be purged.  I will try to donate that stuff today as well, not just set it up for donating.

I have to remember to also empty my kathiskos, there has been a month or two this year where I have done this late because I completely forgot about it.  Not good at all.  However, I have regularly been emptying the kathiskos on one of the plants in my yard that has actually managed to survive my Green Reapers touch – the Bird of Paradise.  Wonderfully for the first time in a couple years the Bird of Paradise has produced more than a single flower – five so far actually.  Five of them! How cool is that?  I know, they should probably have that many flowers every year, but I have kids and had a dog and have a black thumb, so this is basically a miracle.

The Day of the 31st, Saturday

I will continue packing stuff up and sorting stuff to get rid of.  I will also get in and do a bit of intentional hearth witchery cleaning.  I think this is a good time to tear down any and all shielding I have built up around the house and yard, and myself.  Break down any spells that are still active on the property.

In the evening, but before it gets dark (remembering it gets dark around 10pm at the moment) I will do one of those burn the unwanted stuff spells.  One that is along these lines, where you burn things that are representative of the negative things in your life, whether they be past things or things that are currently happening.  For those things that have no icon to use (no photos or anything) I will make one, probably just by writing about it briefly on a piece of paper.

And yes, in case you’re wondering, I will invoke Hekate for this one.  As the Goddess of transitions (and witchcraft) it stands to reason She would be the one to call on for help in taking out the old so you can bring in the new.

The Night of the 31st, New Years Eve

In Hellenism we try to see the end of the day as being sunset, sunset then is also the beginning of the new day – so in this, darkness on New Years Eve is technically New Years Day.  Try not to think too much about this confusion.  So this is the beginning of the year, kind of and so I will do another spell – busy busy – one of those, bring this positive stuff into my life spells.

I am not entirely sure of what sort of spell this will actually be yet, but I will probably just end up doing my trusty adapted knot magic.  This is where you make something similar to a friendship bracelet, using each knot to chant out the things you are trying to attract – to bind them to you.  Repeat the chant until the length is as long as you need it to be.  Then you wear the knotted length as a bracelet or on your body somewhere for as long as you need to wear to it.  Fairly basic, but it’s been good to me in the past.

Day of the 1st, New Years Day

After spending a risky night with no shielding or other magical protection, I will rebuild what protection I think is needed.  For the property itself though this will be temporary, I mean, I won’t be living here for much longer so there is no point in putting up something too permanent.

I will do my usual Noumenia ritual, which I won’t go into here as this is getting to be a lengthy post already.  I am not sure though if I should refill the kathiskos, I will have to look up what to do with the kathiskos when moving house.

And then I will spend the day making plans for the week, month and even the year.  These will be mundane plans, magical plans, religious plans, homeschooling plans and more.  Plus, of course, some more packing, unless I magically did it all in the previous few days – unlikely, ugh.

And that’s about it, fairly simple for the most part, but I do like to keep things simple.  What about everyone else? Any plans for saying goodbye (or something more insulting) to 2016 and then ringing in the new year of 2017?