New Years Day – 2018 – Renewed Heartfelt Intentions!

Does everyone get as excited for New Year’s Day as I do?!

I know most people get really jazzed for New Year’s Eve…but for me it is all about New Year’s Day…and if you know me, you already know how I feel about it!

I LOVE THIS DAY!

I suppose I see the first day of the New Year much like everyone else, a clean slate, ready to start fresh, turning a new page…etc, etc, etc… But I also see the New DAY as setting the TONE for the New YEAR!

For me, it is all about summoning the energy of the Earth, praying to God, calling upon the Universe, instilling Karmic laws, and Manifesting my Destiny…all rolled into one hearty, heaping BALL of GOODNESS and infusing it into this BRAND NEW DAY…and I can’t do that if I am feeling off my game!

I don’t particularly care to drink my night away, and rise to a blurry, hurting head…carrying the baggage of the previous year into my NEWNESS!

To each their own, just never been my gig.

Really folks, think about it…we have this completely PERFECT day.

To bring anything less then our best to it, is almost an insult to the day, year and ourselves. I literally want to JUMP out of bed, clear headed…ready to embrace the new day and NEW YEAR!

After all, ultimately God and I are the creator of my life’s path.

Now, it just so happens, I have been waiting for this particular New Year’s Day more then previous years. For me it offers closure to a year that offered much growth.

Growth that I anticipated…so in a sense, I was fully ready and welcoming of it. Actually, I am into continual growth and self discovery. After all, it is a never ending process.

Yet, I have learned many necessary lessons in 2017 and now am ready to continue moving forward.

This is the year I claim a new pattern in my existing life…and that new pattern is infused with the hopefulness and love I have always brought to every situation.

My Blog Hopeservations!

I am so excited to share this with the world…finally!

All the Universe conspired to make this ONE perfect day for unveiling my new beginning!

New Year’s Day – January 1, 2018 landed on a MONDAY…my lucky and most favored day of the week.

What better day to share with the world my new endeavour?

This is the day I claimed as the true birth of hopeservations.com.

So while I am formally moving forward with my blog, Hopeservations…just like every year, I looked forward to what I would write about.

My welcoming wish to all my friends and family – and like every year, I literally researched the JUST right passage and theme to set the tone for the year!

I dunno…I suppose it is the writer in me!

If you look back through the years of Facebook post, I do talk about this every year and not just the general well wishes but a desire to infuse this day with everything that brings hope, love, heartfelt intentions and Good Luck to all for a year!

For me it starts days before in anticipation of opening our humble home to friends & family for our annual Open House, “Start Your Year Right” dinner and every other tradition we have incorporated into the day.

After all, we are southern, and southerners tend to be a tad bit superstitious. We start with taking down all the Christmas decorations and cleaning house. All decorations must be packed away and the tree carried out the day before because nothing can go out on New Year’s Day as that is a symbol of bad luck.

Since you must go into the New Year with as much of a fresh start as possible, all the cleaning must be done prior to New Year’s Day too. The day prior and especially at midnight (if at all possible), all the doors of our house must be opened to let the old year (and any bad spirits, according to old wive’s tales) escape.

These must leave before the New Year can come in.

We also cook a good luck meal based on southern traditions that has subtle variations all over the world but we stick with what we know best.

Many regions do something similar…I see meals posted all over various social media sites and I love it! It means traditions are living strong all over the country!

For us, it consists of eating black-eyed peas or some kind of bean, as they are the symbolism that represents humility and a lack of vanity. Eating black-eyed peas also goes with the old saying, “Eat poor on New Year’s, and eat fat the rest of the year.” Add to it that dried beans look like a coin and have come to represent financial good fortune.

We’ll have plenty of white rice, because it represents fertility and newness.

We also have roasted pork because a pig roots forward and can not look back, meaning those who dine on pork will be moving forward in the New Year.

Big NO NO’s are any type of poultry or cow because poultry scratches backwards and cows stand still.

When it comes to the greens, any will do but we generally prepare collards, mostly because that is what my family prefers and what we have growing in my Mother’s garden. Greens represent the coming of money.

Another New Year’s Day staple is cornbread, and yes – it has a reason too…because it is golden in color and represents both gold and fertility. Added to it the Southern New Year’s well-known phrase, “Peas for pennies, greens for dollars, and cornbread for gold.”…and we have covered all our Good Luck meal bases!

Next, we have a bonfire and burn the Christmas tree…that we took out the day BEFORE. It symbolizes out with the old and we watch the direction the smoke blows to see how the year might progress.

Yes, it is another old southern tradition and who knows if it’s true but it’s what we do. If the wind blows from the south, there will be fine weather and prosperous times in the year ahead. If it comes from the north, it will be a year of bad weather. The wind blowing from the east brings famine and calamities. If the wind blows from the west, the year will have plentiful supplies but also possibly the death of a very important person. If there’s no wind at all, a joyful and prosperous year can be expected by all.

Don’t laugh – it is what we do.

A tradition specific to my household and has nothing to do with any southern traditions but simply my hopeful love for life is declaring our heartfelt intentions.

I can’t recall for how many years we’ve been doing this but it has been an awfully long time…nearly a decade.

My guests, family and friends love and look forward to it yearly. I cut out paper hearts of various sizes and put them in a bowl for people to pick from. I set out all types of markers, colored pencils, glitter sticks, you name it and everyone decorates and writes their New Year’s “Heartfelt Intentions.”

They aren’t meant to be New Year’s Resolutions but rather anything that moves them or comes from the heart. Everyone gets very creative and they usually turn out quite beautifully. Then I tape them to a wall in my kitchen and there they stay for the entire year.

They become an interesting topic of discussion throughout the year as people inquire and read them. Then on the following New Year’s Day, if guests return, they are able to reflect back and start new or see how far they have come in the year.

It is a lovely tradition that both adults and children alike enjoy…

Whatever you and your family does to mark the New Year – make it meaningful. Move your attention gently and purposefully into your heartfelt space.

Be gracious.

Be attune to yourself an others.

Be brave to claim your path.

Be forgiving and vulnerable.

Be new with your patterns and all its awkward perfection.

Be hopeful.

Be love.

Be fully inspired!

Be renewed!

I know I take all this and more into my new year, especially as I embrace having brought my blog, Hopeservations to life!

“Be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to clothe yourselves with the new self, created according to the likeness of God.” – Ephesians 4:23-24

I look forward to hearing from you all in 2018, please subscribe, comment, follow, pin, post, and share yet mostly I hope you will be renewed as you go forward into 2018!

Go in love,