An Honor to the "New Year"

 

My new year occurs as October transitions to November, yet I acknowledge and honor to a minor degree the conventional "new year" of the collective: The flip to this current year most of us refer to as 2023 (CE). I mean, I have a new wall calendar, the fab Ricard Levins Morales Liberation Calendar, and I made a version of a creamy garbonzo bean soup for dinner, because: Beans. Eating beans on January 1st, like many of you, is a custom I grew up with, and one that I continue to actively honor for the broad and deep symbolism the bean/seed offers in this part of winter; symbolism and story that resonates deeply for me.

I started reviewing my saved 'n' leftover seeds from 2022 (and earlier), and am making decisions of what, if any, fresh seeds I desire to purchase. As a dedicated, flawed and evolving anticapitalist, I do my best to purchase less and less... and - at the insistence of my rooted kin - to stop treating seeds in all their incarnations as commodities. And that's likely a story for another day.

I also leveraged this collective idea of "new year" to do some deep indoor cleaning, as well as to burn some of our homegrown Artemisia ludoviciana to send prayer outdoors, in the form of blessed smoke to be carried through the air 'n' ethers to where it is intended, and most needed. A significant piece of that prayer was in honor of one of my sister-in-laws whose spouse passed on the first morning of 2023. 

I knitted, crocheted, and read some fiction. I continued reading my LANDBACK magazine from NDN Collective that arrived this past week, in the hopes that I may continue re-learning so that I may become a better ally to all my kin, Mama Gaia included (of course), as well as continue to do the work that I may become a better white person. ::nods:: 

So, like every day, the wheel turns with the "new year," life evolves with glories 'n' grief, blessings one and all. May all the days ahead treat you kindly, offer you genuine healing, and chasmic contentedness. 

Peace. 🕊