I am entering into a special soul-connecting time I have cultivated for myself. The three weeks leading up to the Solstice and Christmas I take a women’s class called Holiday Council. It has been revolutionary to me this last half decade. It is the transformational tool I have used to make so many soul changes and physical changes. This is the class that leads me to all of my themes for the year and ways of being. 2020 has been GROUNDED.

In addition to this class, I highly invested in myself and signed up for another course offered by the same teacher, called Reclamation, where I will spend time with 250 women in the online community of our course, planning, scheming and dreaming. That class begins in the end of January. I’m SO ready.

In my preparation for the class starting today, I spent the long weekend cleaning out closets, researching topics that interest me for this exploratory dream making/goal setting time, drinking tea, putting dates and moon cycles into my iPhone calendar, and physically preparing a sacred space to do my class work in.

The process of making this space was so powerful to me and so affirming that I decided to help my students make a space. What’s funny is…I always do this. I have children make special spaces every year for many reasons in several seasons. But the intention behind it this time was different. My intention is for them to learn how to create sacred spaces, in the physical world and in their internal world. NO. I don’t call them that. I don’t want anyone to equate this with me teaching religion. If anyone is concerned, I affirm this is the same as mindfulness work.

I told them that I have some decorations for celebrations that happen in this last month of the year, (a large and varied spattering of Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Solstice), but that it is OUR space. I invited them to make snowflakes. I invited them to attach art and objects to the space. I suggested found objects and things they create. I showed them the multitude of decorations and objects children have given me for this season over the decades, some broken or chipped from many years of little hands holding them.

I asked the students what we should call this space. What are some ideas they had for names? WOW, there were some good ones. “The space of good and bad things.” “The happy place.” “The celebration space.” Then one of them said “The Wall that Keeps Good Things” and I had to write it down. I said, “That’s so powerful, I need to remember what you said.” The little peanut smiled their shy smile and it warmed my heart. They always have delicious things to share.

So many wonderful name ideas led us to calling it “the special space.” Every morning as we begin our day, we have the option to make an offering to this shared special space.

I asked them to consider what they want to keep about 2020 and what they want to compost, or get rid of. I’m directly borrowing concepts from my class, but I do this because I know the concepts work. And if there were any other time that children need and DESERVE to be taught how to do this kind of release, it’s now, in 2020.

I’m going to make a cardboard chest and tape it shut for us to slip letters into. We will give it things we want to write down and let go of. Things that upset us, like memories or slights we want to say goodbye to forever. Old hurts and new hurts. I will remind them that the act of saying goodbye doesn’t mean that that thought or feeling magically disappears, but it loses some thought power. I will invite them to take their letters back on the 23rd before we go to break, if they feel they aren’t ready, or to let me take them home and have a little bonfire in my yard with them. I would never read their letters. I will throw the whole box in the fire, never reading a single one. The ashes will get put in my garden and grow seeds from the Yucca pods I collected this year. We will also write down our joys, and put them up on the wall of good things so it can keep them for 2021.

In the preparation for my class, I fully admitted to myself that I have some very obvious witch habits. It feels bizarre to claim that name for myself, but once I said it, and said it out loud in messages to members of my class community, I realized in seconds that it’s probably obvious to everyone that knows me. I mean. I have been reading tarot for almost 30 years. I am most happy around plants. I create things with abandon. Around 12-15 years ago when my Stitch and Bitch was in full force, Will enjoyed telling me to enjoy the weekly meeting of the coven. And you know what? We were a coven. We might not have thought it at the time, but we were such a strong bond of women, no matter how different, but knitting, liberal politics and stitchcraft bonded us tightly together. We.are.all.connected.still. We are spread across the United States, across lifespans, attitude changes, lifestyle choices, you name it. Women came and went, and over time the energy of that pack of women drifted to the SnB being me and two new faces that in effect, made our own inseparable for the time, bond. Even now in Covidlandia we support each other with the aid of social media.

The concept of the wall that keeps good things blew me away because just those words sounded like a gift. A gift of holding space. Whether that space is the little environment you keep for yourself in your car, at home with your family, with your pets, your closest people, your different communities, wherever and however that space is, YOU BELONG THERE. You are crucial to that space. All of you.

I send you the delight of a scent that brings good memories.

I send you a sun ray landing on your desk during a busy morning.

I send you an eyelash to wish upon.

I send you all the hope and love of this first week of Advent.

Blessings upon blessings upon blessings.

Namaste.