My mom sends out an end-of-year assemblage of musings every December. These are her urgings, reminders & proclamations, for the New Year. She is a very wise woman. Take heed.

 
An aside: I have talked to my mom about her CAPS lock issue on numerous occasions. She refuses to amend her ways. She says — and I quote — “regular size just doesn’t seem good enough.”

Out of deference to her idiosyncrasies, I have preserved my mother’s annual missive in its original yelling-at-your-eyeballs form. Enjoy…

IF YOU’RE NOT SURE, WAIT.
ACT WITH CERTAINTY, IT ALWAYS COMES EVENTUALLY.

DANCE WITH FREEDOM AND OFTEN.

THERE’S NO YIN WITHOUT THE YANG, BUT OF COURSE YANG IS WAYYYYY MORE FUN.

LISTEN TO MUSIC, ALL KINDS DAILY.
(MY PICKS FOR WINTER ARE ROBERT SCHUMANN, RALPH VAUGHN WILLIAMS, ERIK SATIE, RISING APPALACHIA, HAFEZ NAZERI.)

WATCH EVERY SUNSET, NO EXCUSES.

BE WACKY, THERE’S NO HARM DONE.

WHEN IN DOUBT TALK TO LOVED ONES, FRIENDS, REACH OUT, LISTEN AND CONSIDER ALL OPTIONS…THEN DO WHAT YOU DAMN PLEASE.

IF YOU ARE STUCK, ADMIT IT AND SEEK HELP.
THERE ARE ALWAYS MANY PATHS TO ANY SOLUTION, NO MATTER WHAT YOU THINK.

BE SURPRISED OR BE SURPRISING — OR BOTH!

TAKE CARE OF YOUR BODY AND THEN EXTEND THIS TO OUR PLANET.

EAT LESS MEAT, DAIRY AND SUGAR. EAT SMALLER PORTIONS, BUT NEVER GIVE UP ON CHOCOLATE.

WHEN YOUR PARTNER, CHILDREN OR FRIENDS WANT TO TALK OR MEET DROP EVERYTHING AND BE THERE.

SIT WITH DEATH AS THE GREATEST REALITY — THE RAVEN AT THE CENTER — AND THEN YOU WILL KNOW LIFE MORE FULLY… OR GET REALLY DEPRESSED.

TIME IS PRECIOUS, no kidding! SO ONLY TELL FUNNY JOKES PLEASE!

PROFUNDITY IS AROUND YOU. YOU DO NOT HAVE FAR TO LOOK.

READ “AN ESSAY ON CRITICISM” BY ALEXANDER POPE — HE WAS ONE VERY SMART DUDE!

ALSO READ POETRY, SHAKESPEARE AND YOUR FAVORITE NOVELIST.

CULTIVATE SILENCE AND NATURE AND COOKIE-BAKING BUT SEE ABOVE: LESS DAIRY AND SUGAR. LIVE WITH CONTRADICTIONS IN CONTENTMENT.

LIFE IS UNCERTAIN BUT TAKE HEART LEST YOU DESPAIR, IT ALWAYS HAS BEEN. DO YOU THINK IT WAS EASY FOR THE CRO MAGNONS? TRUST ME, THEY WEREN’T JUST DRAWING IN THOSE CAVES ALL DAY!

SOMETIMES IT IS GOOD TO GO TO EXCESS — BE BAWDY, ROWDY, NAUGHTY. THAT IS ALL.

LISTEN HARD AND TRY NOT TO SPEAK. BUT KNOW THIS IS IMPOSSIBLE — ESPECIALLY FOR MOTHERS.

HAVING SAID ALL THIS, ALTHOUGH A YEAR OLDER, I AM NOT SURE I HAVE GAINED ANY WISDOM BUT LIKE ALL OF US KEEP TRYING MY FEEBLE BEST.

OH, ANOTHER THING — GO SOMEWHERE BEAUTIFUL IF YOU CAN, IN YOUR MIND OR FOR REAL.

HOPING THIS YEAR — THE YEAR OF THE DRAGON — IS FULL OF FIRE, CREATIVITY, HEALTH, PASSION AND FRIENDSHIPS OF LOVE AND FAMILY.
 

Image = my momma, playing the role of Musetta in Puccini’s “La Bohème,” circa 1992.

Peace on earth. And ecstatic self-worth.

New Years resolutions are restrictive, belittling, and designed to make you feel like a failure, when you (humanly, and naturally) fall short of your mark. What a swell way to kick off the Age of Aquarius, and the Year of the Dragon! Snort!

New Years rituals, on the other hand, are commemorative, detached from results, and designed to simply let you FEEL the movement of time, in a tangible way. They bring aliveness, not obligations.
And while I might be a little biased, in my experience, it’s the rituals — not resolutions — that yield lasting results.

Here are six heart-opening New Years rituals — for closure, completion + thunderbolt clarity.
Perform with love.

Try a Six-Day Sex Date…

…with someone really FOXY. (Say, yourself.) Three hours of sex, every day, for nearly a week. New sensations, spontaneous experiences, frisky toys…and levels of intimacy. Kim Anami spells it all out,
in this bodacious post, worthy of Playboy (which, incidentally, she also writes for.)

Get an intuitive reading. A GOOD one.

Getting witnessed by a master intuitive is an experience you won’t soon forget. I got a reading with
The Tarot Lady last week, and it’s already altered my vocational vision for 2012 (hint: supreme SELF-EXPRESSION), and how I intend to show up, in my relationships (hint: sans WORRY).
Spooky-resonant, short of breath, misty-eyed, cosmic YES-ness. Give it to yourself.

Create a Gratitude Practice.

What if, instead of focusing your precious life force + attention on dropping those last 3.5 pounds (“because THEN I’ll really have made it, man!”) you devoted 15 minutes a day to simply exuding … gratitude? You could write one thank you note every morning, like Patti Digh. You could try some wild-child philanthropy. You could buy coffee for the frazzled commuters in the line, behind you —
and tip the barista, of course. And with regards to those last 3.5 pounds?
Focused gratitude burns extra calories. Trust me.

Schedule a Digital Sabbatical.

Figure out when you can commit to a tech-free vacation, and literally put it on your calendar. Ink it up. Make it real. And discover who you ARE, without social media, email or your ‘work’ to define you. Luminous, scary, and wholly necessary.

Burn + RELEASE.

Write down something — or everything — you are ready to RELEASE, in 2012. Say, obsessive email-checking. Or feelings of worthlessness. Or co-dependent tendencies. Or the wheezing business identity you’re finally ready to put out of its misery. Or a relationship that’s OVER, everywhere but your head. Hold your scrap of paper over a match. Let it catch fire. And scatter those ashes into the ether.
You…are free. Stardust in the wind.

Find a POWER WORD.

One word that will color + characterize, amplify + affirm your entire identity, in 2012. Like a micro-manifesto, or one-word affirmation. My 2011 POWER WORD was VOLTAIC: noting or pertaining to electricity or electric currents, especially when produced by chemical action, as in a cell; galvanic.
My word for 2012? DEVOTION. Find yours, and keep it close.

Onward + upward. Inward + outward.

Less glazed ham. More H20.
OD on Rumi. Mute Kenny G.
Write a phat stack of thank yous.
And Gregorian chants for the win.

Also:

Don’t do anything you don’t want to do.
Don’t buy anything you don’t want to buy.
Don’t go anywhere you don’t want to go.
Don’t be someone you don’t want to be.

And bake those cookies like it’s your job.

Merry everything.
Blessings with bells on.

Ayahuasca.

It’s a psychotropic plant medicine, used by Peruvian shamans to enter into a trancelike state, where the rhythms and energetic currents of the universe form dance patterns in the air.

“Ayahuasca? It is my teacher.” My scholarly client — a sacred interior designer & mandala artist — spoke the words so matter-of-factly. A small-minded judgment jostled in my cerebral cortex for, oh, a quarter of a second. Mind-altering substances? Man, drugs aren’t teachers. They’re, like, recreation! Right?

And then it settled, like truth.

Your teachers are whoever — whatever — you say they are.

And what is the precise definition of “teacher,” if we’re being pedantic?

One who instructs, informs, enlightens. Who incites curiosity. Who imparts wisdom.

One who opens the door to deeper understanding — of yourself, of humanity, of historical spirals of war & restoration, injustice & awakening.

The etymological roots of the word “teacher” are rich, and peculiar. It’s thought to stem from from the Olde English tæcan, which bore two distinct meanings: “a sign, mark or token” and “to show, declare, warn or persuade.”

My teachers are invisible, and infamous.
Liquid, and lunar. Sensual, and sonic.

Strong coffee is my teacher. Sex is (most definitely) my teacher. Vivaldi is my teacher. So is VNV Nation. Heartbreak & rejection are most excellent teachers. So is acceptance. That woman who crumbled, begging me for money — my god, what a teacher. Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde has taught me so much. Mr. Rogers filled in the rest. The Benedictine monks at Abiquiu didn’t unlock much wisdom, for me…but their music did. The bitter Midwestern winter — so different from my tangerine childhood in southern California — holds lessons I’ve yet to master. The full moon is my teacher. Free time is my teacher. Sickening, senseless fear is my teacher.

Your teachers are everywhere.

Show them respect.
And remember that…

“Anything or anyone that does not bring you more alive is too small for you.” –David Whyte

…too small for you…and probably not your teacher.