New Year’s Eve I pop the champagne.
Literally.
POP!
The fizzy explosion startles my sister, and a stream of admonishments flow with the waterfall of wasted champagne, gushing into a lake onto the kitchen counter and swarming into a bubbly puddle onto the floorboards. We both watch in wide-eyed horror as the freed cork recklessly rockets to the china slumbering in open shelves above the kitchen phone.
There’s a collective sigh as the flying daredevil misses (and as I write this I realize we never found that cork…the vacuum will one day offer a final resting place).
Suddenly we are children again, quickly cleaning up the mess before the parents discover that our (well, I take responsibility, but it was an accident) mischief almost threatened household peace (a shattering of a cherished piece of china would not be a happy note for my mother to end on for 2018).
“Gavin could get drunk,” remarks Katie and our mopping becomes faster as we envision our golden retriever happily licking up the spilled celebration and getting tail-waggingly tipsy.
A tipsy Gavin and even a boozy me are not in my plans and intentions for this New Year’s Eve.
This New Year’s Eve I decide to stay in and create a ritual to commune with my soul, to be present in a sacred pause illuminated by flickering candles and Rebecca Campbell’s “Work Your Light” oracle cards.
“You are your own oracle.” The words inside the box subtly glimmer in the candlelight. I take this as a sign, for the phrase reflects a chiming truth that has been ringing throughout these past two years, two years thick in change and powerful in tidal waves of honesty and healing.
My time in Texas keeps teaching me that I know all my answers.
I need to be still enough to hear.
I need to trust myself enough to let go of the second-guessing, the overthinking, the fear, and surrender to the spirit-led response and in faith and courage take the purposeful action to move myself forward.
I need to be courageous enough in the silence to listen and hear my heart speak.
I need to be daring enough to speak out loud that truth, to live out loud that truth.
Speak.
My spirit-word for my 28th year.
I choose this word-for-the-year on my birthday. My birthday feels like my New Year, a new spin around the sun. A word to encompass qualities I heart-discern to cultivate a stronger embodiment of, a deeper connection to, a word that breaks me further open.
I commune with Speak here, on this New Year’s Eve. A mid-year check-in, to let Speak elucidate lessons emerging in our joint 28th year journey.
I pop! the champagne as a celebratory nod to the festivities typical of the new year.
I pour the remaining giggling concoction into petite wine glasses with sea foam green etches of Ancient Greeks, a favorite from childhood, only I would sip Welch’s sparkling grapefruit juice and pretend the juice was wine.
I place the champagne near the candles governing over the vintage mirror tray. This makeshift altar holds beloved necklaces and crystals and stones routinely carried in the pockets of purses. The necklaces and the crystals gather for a New Year’s ceremony with the intention to infuse and imbue all the energetic lessons ready to unfold from the card reading, from a pause that speaks loudly.
And with mindful cycles of breath and a focused centering on the heart, Speak whispers and booms soulful lessons learned, learning, unlearning this far.
Speak brings me closer to stillness.
Speak deepens reverence for quiet, a quiet now I realize my physical self yearns for, a relaxed way of being that leaves the radio off when I drive, keeps podcasts waiting while I do chores around my home, that snuggles into mindful pauses between my to-dos, or before I speak.
Speak challenges me to confront.
I pull a card that questions what I would do if I had no fear? The answers flash and stun me because they create friction, they call into question, they command I live up even more fully into my Light when I teach and when I perform, because I am dimming out of fear. The fears I have around my teaching, my performing circle back to trust, to declaring and defending my needs, and brightening in authenticity. I am worthy of blazing that bright and being relaxed in that shine.
Speak encourages me to deeply listen and honor my body.
I wake the first day of 2019 at 5am with a sore throat.
The irony of an evening dedicated to Speak resulting in a sore throat just tickles me.
I don’t distress. My body needs to drain and purge. My body needs to rest, and a cold truth (ha!) is that sometimes the only out I give myself is if I get a little sick.
I grant myself the whole day to recover and restore. I sip hot coffee with cinnamon. I write and I read. I let myself follow a sense of ease and the day is unintentionally productive because I flow within my boundaries and do and write and speak from a nourished inner spring.
I don’t want to stay in this routine, though, of collapsing into resting when I am ill. My body voices a need for better sleep, a calming and supportive evening routine because the one I have now feels punishing, integrating certain foods and immune boosters back into my everyday routine, and even excitedly whispers an idea to explore different healing modalities (acupuncture, float tanks, infrared sauna) each month or every other month as a way to restore and rejuvenate optimal well-being.
And pops of champagne and nights curled in to listen to my soul-speak will be absolutely essential to nurturing the inner flame while proceeding into the ride that is and will be 2019.
Let’s keep creating magic and giving our hearts wild permission to SPEAK.