Crossroads

It’s new years eve! WHEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

Actually. I am less excited about it than that.

I am not too big on New years eve. But it has potential. It’s probably the most and the least “american” holiday we’ve got.

On the one hand, it is an evening peppered with champagne corks and a shitload of drunken assholes on the roads.

Totally American.

But then, people are encouraged to look forward and make some kind of change, to grow a little bit.

Something not so american eh?

So even though I really hate the whole new years eve spend it drunk with a bunch of strangers trip… It can be fun when spent like a solstice, and it’s a great opportunity to move with ease into a new vibration.

I need to consciously move into a new vibration.

It has been a very difficult year for many of us (just about everyone I know really) and I can’t wait to ride the wave, of collective focus on positive change, toward a new vibrational output. It’s totally possible. really.

The Tibetans have a wonderful tradition of taking it to the crossroads.
A special dough is prepared and then you take a piece of the dough and press it on the places in your body that feel pain. You play with the dough and put the stale and negative emotions of last year into the dough, and then you take it to a place where two roads cross, and you leave the dough there.

A physical exercise to remove the negativity of the last year. And then you come home and set the intentions for the new year.

I really like this practice.

It’s funny. 19 years ago tonite, I took refuge at the Monastery in Woodstock. It was a pretty beautiful night.
My dear friend Jodi was with me. My mother. It was a special night, and a special thing to do on the new year; “become” a Buddhist. It took almost ten years for me to figure out that I was not a good Buddhist. I am a little too strong of a woman for that scene, and I don’t relate well to other American Buddhists. But somewhere at the roots of my spirit, is the Dharma. It’s funny that this year I should be making a plan to play with old folklore of the Tibetan ilk rather than sit on a cushion.

I wonder if I need more cushion sitting. Probably.

Either way, I have no plans to go out and get drunk for this change of emotional season. I think I’ll take some old shit to the crossroads, share something sweet with my honey and go to sleep appreciating the beauty of life.

Gonna do my best to prepare for a beautiful new year to come…

I hope you are somewhere sweet.

Crossroads In Winter. by Petr Kratochvil