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Outside it is Winter. There's a fierce wind whipping up from the Southwest and more snow is due tonight. Imbolc is a few weeks past, March is around the corner, and signs of the shift into Spring are already happening. Despite the cold temperatures, there are some trees showing tiny swells of buds on the tips of their branches. Despite snow in the forecast, there is more light in the sky. All signs are pointing towards the Waxing Year, the growing light, and the energies of the burgeoning Spring.

I don't make New Year's resolutions. I never really have. As a kid I was intrigued with all the lip service this idea got, but I noticed that no one ever discussed what actually became of the resolutions they made at the beginning of the year. And then it was never a surprise how quickly people joked that they had broken them. Making resolutions seemed, quite frankly, futile. So I never make any resolutions. Nor do I panic about making all kinds of plans and commitments right on New Years Eve and Day. A New Year needs a few weeks to start unfolding itself and revealing what it is.

Traditions abound about how New Year's Eve and Day should be best spent, to ensure a new year's worth of blessings and prosperity. Special foods are prepared to ensure prosperity (black eyed peas & collards, grapes, baked fish, are a few examples), and folk magic spells are still passed down through the generations. In my own family, right after we watched the ball drop in Time Square, we'd throw a big pot of water out the front door onto the lawn, to carry all the past year’s ills and troubles with it. The innate sense of freshness, renewal and change that is associated with the Winter Solstice and its different iterations , is also reflected in the magic of the turning of the calendar year.

Our planet is powered by the Sun, and the constant ebb and flow of light and darkness is the engine for the dynamic forces that shape our world and all life on it. When we begin to awaken to Earth-centered spirituality, we are often called to come into a more intimate relationship with the natural world. The day to day and season to season changes our planet goes through that are visible in the composition of the earth's physical body, in the weather, in the migrations of animals, in the blooming and fruiting of plants—all of these phenomena are the signs by which the Universe reveals itself to us. This is the material reality that is the basis of all we do, all we dream of and aspire to. We can in no way “liberate” ourselves from these cycles and rhythms and events, and indeed this is where the oldest human societies looked to find answers to their deepest questions. Religious celebrations the world over reflect these natural cycles, as they reflect times of seeding, growing, harvesting and decay.

October 30, 2011.The night before Samhain, and I was getting into bed: exhausted, restless and ungrounded. Thinking about the next day was stressing me out even further. I realized I was starting to dislike Halloween in the same the way many devout Christians dislike the “holiday season” of Christmas. Yup: Halloween was starting to interfere with my Samhain.