Blue Heron Visions: Chapter 13: A Turn of Year

This manuscript is both a memoir of sorts and a work of fiction. The stories and events included are based on my life experiences and memories but I have changed names, details, event sequences, and outcomes throughout the work.

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Chapter 13: A Turn of Year

Christmas had quietly crept in and out of Elizabeth's life this year. As she awakened, she thought back to the holiday that had taken place just a few days before. Vincent had had to work, so they just had a small celebratory dinner on the one day he got off. They had not attended his family's Christmas get-together. Now, the new year loomed large on the horizon.

Elizabeth arose and proceeded to do her morning rituals—making the bed, putting away the dishes, preparing her breakfast, her thoughts ruminating about the new year. For the past several years, she and Vincent had done some kind of a ritual around the new year, saying good bye to the old and anticipating the new. One year Vincent suggested that they write letters from their future selves, the selves that they would be in one year. At the end of that year, they had read those letters to see how what was written had played out in their respective lives. Another year, they had written down old habits, thoughts and actions that they wanted to let go of in the new year. They had buried their lists in one of Elizabeth's plants. Last year, they had drawn different cards from the various oracle and angel decks that Elizabeth had. Each card selected came as a result of a series of questions that were focused on the year ahead. Once the card was selected, they each took turns discussing how the card spoke to the question posed. Elizabeth had found this ritual online and had very much enjoyed the process. She had recorded the questions, the cards, and her interpretations regarding her life in her journal.

Elizabeth didn't have a plan for this year's ritual. In fact, she hadn't spoken to Vincent about what to do. He had been working long hours because of his schedule and extra overtime, so they hadn't spent much time together other than sleeping. Elizabeth knew that Vincent's work schedule could be very intense. So she decided she would figure out a new ritual, make preparations for New Year's Eve, and surprise Vincent with a dinner and the ritual.

As Elizabeth started thinking about the new year, she thought about how much people loved a fresh start. For her there were two times of the year that always seemed to offer that new page: January and September. January, of course, was the beginning of a new calendar year. September was the beginning of a new school year, and even though Elizabeth had not been in school for many years, she still felt the anticipation and the freshness that a new school year offered to parents, teachers, and students.

Elizabeth considered why a fresh start seemed so important to everyone. Excitement, anticipation, hope, belief in possibilities and opportunities were just some of the feelings people had when something new was beginning. Those were the emotions from which the seeds of New Year's resolutions sprouted; the accompanying vision of successful outcomes was what caused them to grow. But the breaking of those new resolutions quickly resulted in the death of the tender seedlings of possibility and brought disillusionment about the idea of a fresh start.

For many years, Elizabeth, like so many others, had resolutions to eat less, exercise more, take better care of herself, to be this or that, or to achieve some other self-improvement goal that she thought would make her happy, more worthy, or more valuable and in demand by others. And like so many others, those achievements had been few and far between. That's why in the last few years, Elizabeth had stopped making New Year's resolutions. Instead, she had created a Magical Miracle Manifestation box where she would put what her desires, not just for the New Year, but during the year as well.

The idea for the box came from Denise Linn's December newsletter a couple of years before. To begin, Elizabeth had found a wooden box in which she kept her lavender soaps. She took out the dividers and followed Denise's basic instructions for creating the box. But she added her own flair by collaging the box lid with elements, cut-out pictures and words, that spoke to her about magic, miracles, and manifestation. She used some doodles to decorate the four sides of the box, which, per Denise's instructions, should also include the words “Thank You.”

Elizabeth remembered that when she was choosing elements for the lid, she had found the word surrender. When she got ready to glue that word on the lid, she couldn't find it among her cutouts. She was going to varnish the box lid even though she couldn't find that last element but for some reason had decided to wait. The next day she found the cutout laying in plain site amongst her other elements, the very place she had searched repeatedly the day before. A veritable piece of magic, so appropriate given the name of the box.

Elizabeth believed that the word surrender was essential to the collage and significant for the box's intended purpose. The point of the box was to put in slips of paper on which Elizabeth would write desires that she wanted to manifest during the year. But to cling to those desires as if they were more important than what she needed to learn or who she was would be counterproductive. No, surrender meant to be willing to accept an outcome that did not mirror exactly what she had in mind. Elizabeth thought that others might think that was contradictory. Why put desires in the manifestation box if you were willing to accept a different outcome? She often had felt that same way. But at some level (maybe at the level of her soul, Elizabeth wasn't sure), she knew that what she really desired might not be what she had written but some other feeling or result that might or might not come from her original desire. There was also the possibility that her desire might be limited and a greater manifestation was being offered but her preconceived result might cause her to not see or receive a better option.

The Magical Miracle Manifestation box was also about having a grateful outlook. The words “Thank You” on each side of the box were a reminder to show gratitude for all she had been given. Elizabeth knew that she often failed to have an attitude of gratitude. She tended to look at what was missing in her life rather than the abundance that Life presented to her each day. Surrender, Elizabeth believed, also helped with gratitude. The word pointed to the fact that there was some greater purpose to what was happening in any given moment, that the whole world that she saw, knew, and experienced was conspiring to help her to live a magical life and to achieve her life purpose (even if she still didn't know what that was).

Of course, she had to have a measure of faith to think about her desires being manifested or to use a box for that reason. Elizabeth thought about that phrase—"a measure of faith." She could not remember a time when she didn't believe in some higher being or universal energy that gave and sustained life. As a child she was raised a Catholic and later had become a born-again Christian, which meant that for most of her life, Elizabeth had believed in God, Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, and the Bible. The main difference between the two belief systems had to do with the need for priests to act as go-betweens for believers. In the past few years, her concept of a personal God had changed. While she still believed the Universe was personal, relevant to everyone individually and collectively, she had ceased to see God or Source or the Universe as a judge with one prescribed way of finding All That Is. She began to see All That Is as more of an energy, a flow of love, a benevolence that enveloped all of Life. Elizabeth thought of a Bible verse that captured in a few words what she believed: "For in him, we live and move and have our being," although Elizabeth wouldn't use the word "him" to indicate All That Is. At this point in her life, she was embracing and identifying with the Divine Feminine, the Divine Mother, more than the masculine versions of God with whom she had been raised. Of course, she knew and believed that All That Is encompassed both the Divine Feminine and the Divine Masculine.

Elizabeth's faith, though, wavered at times as to how God viewed her. Part of that came from the doctrines and dogmas she had absorbed through Catholic catechism and Christian Bible classes and sermons. She was well versed in the idea that all were sinners and releasing one's belief systems was never easy. She had spent most of the last eleven or twelve years examining her belief systems and deciding which beliefs were relevant to her life and which ones could be let go of because they no longer brought her peace or seemed like truth for her. But letting go of long-established beliefs is not simple. Elizabeth felt that some beliefs were almost built-in and the idea of being unworthy of God was one of those beliefs. Rationally, Elizabeth knew that no one is unworthy, but some part of her was very good at pointing out her flaws. In fact, it was that same part of her that had ridiculed and berated her when she didn't keep her New Year's resolutions, using her lack of commitment and follow-through as proof of her inherent unworthiness and weakness. Elizabeth was sure that others had experienced the same condemning voice because of failing to adhere to their own yearly resolutions.

Elizabeth suddenly realized that she still had not come up with a ritual for New Year's Eve. She really wanted to create a new tradition this year. Hoping for some fresh ideas, she sat down in front of her computer and started a search. Just a couple days before the new year knocked on her door. Would it show up alone or would magic decide to show up with it?