Crossing thresholds of time
Surrender and remembrance as we welcome a new year
I stood in the way of the sunbeam shining through my kitchen window.
I closed my eyes and felt the light on my face. I almost missed it. This moment to notice and receive care from the sun’s is-ness.
My first day of the year was full of cooking. This was by choice. For breakfast, I wanted pancakes from scratch. This was also the year I decided to try my hand at making black-eyed peas. Black folks, and perhaps others, have been doing this for centuries. Welcoming the new year with peas and collard greens is an annual rite of passage. If you’re especially lucky, you may even get some cornbread too. My favorite cookbook is Jubilee: Recipes from Two Centuries of African-American Cooking. The black-eyed peas recipe did not disappoint. I felt my late grandmother’s presence as I chopped, stirred, and tasted for salt. I miss her. Holding her memory close was a touching gift in the midst of all the pressure a new calendar year can bring.
New years are strange and tender thresholds.
Even with the best reflection guides, journaling prompts and goal setting workbooks, the fact remains that we have little control over how life will unfold in the coming season. We prepare the soil of our lives; we sow the seeds of our intentions. We weed the metaphorical gardens beds and provide thoughtful support to all that’s growing within our care. But even still, there are the mysteries of sunshine and rain, of windstorms and drought. We do our best, but we can’t predict the weather.
New years call for surrender to limits of being a human.
In many ways, my last year felt like a crucible. The pressures of marriage, childlessness, religious exploration, and of learning how to hold space as a spiritual care practitioner all pushed me to the ends of myself. There were many moments when I thought I wouldn’t make it to the other side with my full personhood intact. There were many moments when I could only hope for reprieve. Last year was so much more difficult than I knew life could be.
I don’t have any grand conclusions about this, apart from my present knowing that crucibles can have a refining quality to them. Pressure, the experience of being pressed but not destroyed, does in fact have the potential to draw out the truest of who we are. It invites us to shed the expectations to which we cling so fiercely. So I sit here, at the start of this new year, heart opened by life’s strains and surprisingly grateful. Grateful to feel so settled into this version of my life. Grateful for the capacity to hold hope, longing and uncertainty all at once. Grateful for moments to stand in the way of sunbeams, filling my home and warming my face with midwinter’s light.
Remembrance is one of those gentle practices that supports our inner lives as we move towards uncertainty, courageously crossing thresholds of time into an unknown future.
Remembering wintertime offers gifts to those of us who struggle with feeling pressure to perform and produce. The oak tree in my front yard doesn’t “know” it’s January, and yet they are just as they should be: bare, waiting, roots deepening under ground and out of sight. The most important work, winter teaches us, is often hidden and unhurried. There is no anxiousness or concern; the oak tree will be what it ought to be in due season.
Remembering our ancestors’ food ways and soul songs, cooking meals in honor of their lives and traditions, also have a way of rooting us in place and time. Such practices assist us in unlearning our urgency and fear. If our ancestors made it through all they knew and suffered, we too can make it, whether we’ve set the the right “resolutions” or not.
Remembering the days we’ve already lived through, and recounting the lessons, the support and the resilience we’ve nurtured along the way, all assist us in knowing that we are resourced as we navigate whatever comes.
Remembrance is a gift.
I am crossing this threshold of time with excitement and anticipation. I have goals and plans for many good things in the months ahead. But I feel it’s important for me, and for us, to remain rooted as we grow into the coming year. There will be good and difficult experiences. There will be disappointments and joy. We can face these uncertain days with hope as we remember that we are not moving forward alone. Creation holds us. Our ancestors are the wind at our backs. We are capable of becoming all we are meant to be, in due time.
As we welcome 2024, I’m looking foward to sharing time and space with you here on Substack. I’ll be writing weekly blogs again, assuming I don’t run out of things to say. You can also find me here cultivating community for folks who want to integrate embodied contemplative wisdom into their everyday lives. In the meantime, below are a few reflections questions to hold, journal or pray through in the weeks to come.
What might it look like to surrender to life’s unfolding as we cross the threshold into 2024?
What ancestral wisdom might serve as nourishment and support for you in the coming year?
When you look back on all you lived trough in 2023, what lessons are you bringing forward?
In The Garden
I recently opened the doors to a new online community called The Garden. This is a group spiritual direction membership for people who want to integrate practical, embodied contemplative wisdom into their everyday lives. Here’s what’s in store this January in The Garden Contemplative Community:
Spiritual Care Workshop: Embodying the Cycles of the Year
Date: Saturday, January 13th
Time: 11:00 AM - 1:00 PM EST
In this workshop, you will learn how to organize your time around the cycles and seasons of the year. We’ll explore the themes of the four seasons and of the moon cycles. We’ll contemplate our own relationships to time. We’ll hold space for the rhythms and cycles of our bodies. And we’ll map out the year with these earth-based, body-based rhythms in mind. This session is perfect for people who feel like their current way of viewing time is too linear, too rigid and out-of-touch with the deeper rhythms they know are possible. It’s also for folks who’ve been leaning into practices of seasonal living and want to give a little more thought and intention to what this practice means in 2024. You’ll need to bring your journal and your calendar to this workshop.
Group Spiritual Direction
Date: Tuesday, January 30th
Time: 7:00 PM - 8:30 PM EST
This contemplative space1 will feature reflections on seeds, new beginnings, fresh starts and possibilities. Following personal reflection time, each person will be invited to share what’s stirring within them. We will then go around the virtual circle and share how we are each hearing and noticing the holy in what each individual shares. As a note, sharing is not forced or required; you can always pass. This is great opportunity to slow down and reflect at the top of a new year.
Every Friday - Lectio Divina with the Gospel of John
Day & Time: Fridays at 10 AM EST
Lectio Divina, or divine reading, is a contemplative practice in which we sit attentively with the words of Scripture or of another sacred, creative text. Learn more here.
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Group spiritual direction is similar to 1:1 spiritual direction, but we listen and reflect as a group instead of as individuals. In spiritual direction, we together hold prayerful space for our experiences of the divine and holy. Guided by spiritual director, Bethaney Wilkinson, this space is for people of faith and no faith, so long as you have an openness to deep listening, contemplation and attentiveness to what’s holy in yourself, others and the world.
Always appreciating your thoughtful reflections, Bethaney, and looking forward to travelling into this New Year along with A More Beautiful Way....
Nancy N