Our deranged New Year's ritual
Two clementines and Chinese lantern
#52. Cremation of Care
‘I got you a gift.’
We lay stretched in the December light, my wife and I. The sky was a crisp blue above the cul-de-sac outside, waiting and still.
Jasmine squealed with excitement. She knew I’d put a thousand pounds into an ISA for Sonny, my new year’s gift to him. I’d been searching online for rituals to close out 2023, mish-mashing a chimera of cultural rites from around the world. In China they clean their house from top to bottom and give each other cash. Cash seemed easier.
‘Wait here,’ I said.
When I came back with two clementines, her face sagged a little.
‘It’s a tradition in China,’ I offered. ‘They are Waitrose clementines?’
She made the best of it. ‘Oh thank you! I love oranges! Oh my god – these are the best kind as well, they’re so sweet.’
I already had one thing to be grateful for that year – my wife, always kind and patient, always supportive, even when I’m ditching her with our infant son to go to a cuddle workshop or a life drawing class, and even though she did give me so much grief about wanting to put speed dating on my list of new experiences.
I cooked us a celebratory dinner – roast lamb in lemon and thyme, rosemary potatoes and homemade gravy – and settled in for the magical evening. I dimmed the lights, lit a candle (that special brand of candle, you know the one, it starts with D I think), and enchanted the speakers to play the do-do-do, do-do-do of meditative spa music over tinkling water.
1. Suckitude
Pen and paper in hand, we each wrote down everything that sucked about the year, all our fears and grievances. I wrote down my anger at what’s happening in the world, my vices, my failures and frustrations at work. For Jasmine, it was Ramesh (the landlord, not the chicken). After a little cajoling, she forgave him, out loud, and felt lighter for it. We shared our disappointments and our anxieties with each other, listening and supporting. Curled up on the sofa there in the flickering glow of the candle, we connected in a way we hadn’t for a long time.
We were shivering next in the garden, midnight approaching, for the cremation of care, a ritual I pinched from Illuminati hangout Bohemian Grove. We weren’t naked and we didn’t burn an effigy in front of a giant owl – a simple click of the lighter and we watched our list of worries disintegrate into ash in the black night sky.
2. Gratitude
Back on the sofa, we penned everything we were grateful for. I was grateful for all I’d experienced this year – for the slaughtered chicken, the life drawing model, even the Satanists at the sex nightclub (not the Marxist-Leninists though) – and I was grateful for Jasmine, my ever-doting wife, and her support with this totally mental project. I was grateful for our beautiful son, perfect in every way and beyond my wildest hopes, and for the comfortable life we all enjoyed together.
And Jasmine was grateful for some stuff too, I guess.
We talked for so long we had to take a break at midnight to welcome the new year. We tuned into to BBC dross just in time to miss Nish Kumar (a new year’s miracle), had a chuckle playing woke bingo over the London fireworks (NHS, gay marriage, Windrush), and toasted a toast with a glass of fizzing nosecco, sweet and dry. It was a time for celebration. We danced around the room to Rick Astley’s NYE performance, some West Side Story clicking and leaping, and kissed, a deep, tender kiss, true and warm.
3. Intentitude
Finally, we put pen to paper one last time – our intentions for the year. I wanted to be more energetic, active and funny. We shared our hopes and dreams, offering encouragement and support.
We captured our intentions into one, simple phrase, and then transformed this into a sigil. Focusing on the sigil, we meditated for ten minutes, allowing it to sink deep inside our minds.
Shivering in the garden, wrapped like secret Santas under scarfs, parkas, and jumpers, we scribbled our sigils onto a Chinese lantern, and spent thirty minutes figuring out how in the name of Christ a Chinese lantern works.
Wax paper lit, we held our breaths. It slowly lifted off the wet earth and into the void of the December night. Holding each other in our parkas, we watched it float away, this, our orange star, flickering up, up, up into the moonlit sky.
Well, that’s the end of the year, but FEAR NOT. I still have fifteen adventures I didn’t get round to posting. Rage Room. Poetry slam. BDSM sex nightclub! In the face of underwhelming demand, I will continue to post them into next year - and then, who knows?
Happy new year etc.