Suzanne Askham

Releasing 2020 with love and thanks

When my two children were growing up, we used to hold parties around 21^stDecember every year, to mark the longest night and to celebrate the return of longer days in the seasonal calendar. Some years we’d just hold a small family event. Other years we would invite 40 or so people and cater with big, easy pans of cheese and onion flan, parsnip and potato mash and salad, all washed down with local wines, beers and cordials. After supper we’d step outside for a simple ritual that had evolved with the help of a stoneware bowl – we’d make a tiny fire of handwritten notes on which we’d symbolically let go of the past in order to make room for the new.

Each person would quietly write down something they were ready to let go of from the previous year. We’d write, “According to the highest good of all concerned I now let go of (fill in the blank) with love and thanks.”  Then we’d scrunch the paper up and deposit it in the bowl. When all the notes had been gathered, everyone watched the flames. It was a good way to declutter mind and heart. After all, who needs to carry old emotional baggage into Christmas and the New Year?