The dream seeds you plant in the rich darkness of the 13 Holy Nights are like turbo-charged New Year’s resolutions. Rather than simply writing down a list of intentions you actually do the things, activities and practices you want to strengthen or develop in the coming year.... - Lara J. Day My 13 Holy Days ExperienceIt was only yesterday, in retrospect, as I looked through my 13 days journal, that I realized what a rich, expansive and healing time my 13 days were. Every intention that I set came to pass within that time. And I also acted on and experienced the readings I did for myself. I made a list of everything and it was stunning! (39 items on that list) Here are just a few of them… (1) Cooking - I want to cook healthier meals, and real-er meals, instead of say, making a sandwich, or having one-item dinners. (2) Time with Friends - I want to spend more time with my friends. (3) Time with my Son - As is to be expected, my son spends more time with his friends, these days, than he does with me. And he did a bit of a pendulum swing in making that shift. But I would like it to swing back toward the middle this year & begin to do again, some of the things we used to do together (eat a meal, watch TV, etc. Here’s what happened… Background - do you remember that on the first day of the challenge, I mentioned that we sometimes experience both financial & food insecurity? As a result, we have made lots of microwaved one-item meals and have been watching TV separately on our phones. So, just before the 13 days began, my friend and her wife told us they would be giving us food every month to help us, and one of them took us to a grocery store and gave us our first Christmas gift from them, a really big, two-cart grocery spend. Then, at Christmas (the day after) they gave us a Roku TV and a pasta pot that comes with a strainer thing. We all ate dinner together, too, at their house. My son and I watched TV for hours the other day, and we spent other time together too. Inviting people over is another 2022 intention of mine, and on Christmas day, we had his friend over and all of us cooked our dinner. I also cooked most of and the healthiest part of the New Year’s Day meal at my friends' house and watched a movie with them after we ate dinner. While I was cooking the collard greens, cabbage, black-eyed peas and rice, I collected wishes from them and stirred some magic into each one. The stirring in love and wishes is another part of my cooking intention for the year. NOTE - I set my intentions before the 13 days, and set some that I forgot to write down - and still they came true during the 13 days, and some began even before then. Plus, it stunned me that without knowing anything about them, my friends enabled several of them for us! But I was sick during the entire 13-day experience, and a little depressed, too. I always feel sorry for myself when I get sick. So my felt experience of the 13 days was not very holy or sacred. And there were moments when I felt like I was failing by not doing it well enough (recovering perfectionist here). But yesterday, when I woke up, and began to think about and itemize everything that happened, I realized that not only were the intentions manifested, but I also made some powerful shifts and healed and grew, etc. And by the way, that happens a lot when I get sick. For most of this past year, my illnesses turn out to feel like they were initiations once they are over. Also, I kinda forgot some of the guidance in my readings after doing them, and only when I came back afterward, did I see how they had guided me into action and had come true during those days. So not only do I now see that even when I couldn’t feel it, my 13 days were successful, I also feel immense gratitude for them. Word of the YearDo you usually find a word of the year and did you do it this time? I normally don’t do that, but this year, during the 13 days. a phrase came to me. I had this vision of the divine leading me into 2022, my hands enfolded, and what I heard in my head was “trust Me.” So that’s my word (phrase) of the year. How You Can Experience the |
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