anticipation

Last Saturday, January 2nd, I did something I've been intending to do for some few years now. I always managed to find something else to occupy my time, but this year, well, this year I PROMISED myself I would attend. I am so glad I did!
The church I frequent has an annual Anticipation Celebration and Bowl Burning Ceremony. It's a very spiritual affair, meant to start oneself out on the right foot in the new year, by literally lighting a flame to habits and ideas one wishes to shed. Narrow strips of paper, a pen, a fire, and a safe repository for the ashes are all that one needs for the Bowl Burning - well, those are the only physical requirements. I was given one slip on which to write, one slip to be cast aside, one slip to contain those things from which I wished to be freed. Amazing how much that narrow slip could hold! And what a sense of satisfaction to watch as it burned, the flame devouring the inscriptions, melting them into thin air. Even more amazing was the feeling that a load had, indeed, been removed from my shoulders and my mind - a piece of baggage I no longer carried.
The second part of the ritual was much more involved. Again, the only physical items were paper, a pen, and ... a self-addressed, stamped envelope. For the Anticipation Ceremony, I was tasked with writing a letter to myself, a letter which would be put away safely until post-Thanksgiving when it would be arriving in my mailbox. In the letter, I was to congratulate myself for the changes I had made in my life in some respect. What? Sure, I write to/for myself all the time, but to do so as an "Atta Girl!" missive for things I had not yet, and might not ever, accomplish? How to even begin such a thing without being totally self-conscious? And why did I have so many sheets of paper before me?
The leader of this exercise, talking softly and almost in a hypnotic monotone, began giving us a list of ideas and suggestions on how we might flesh them out, what points to include... and a thought took hold and I began, not really listening anymore, much as I am when I am at my beach here, much as I am at this moment. Actually, the same phenomenon occurs when I read books or watch movies. I fall into the story, taking it in as quickly as it will allow. When I am writing, I fall into the words, my fingers scarce keeping pace with my thoughts, forcing me to slow down, to stay coherent. So it was as I wrote my anticipatory letter of congratulation. Before I knew it, I was well into the second page and the leader was saying we needed to wrap things up, bring our letters to a close... and I just happened to be at that very point. How did she know?? I closed, placed the script into the envelope and sealed it shut.
I wonder if the echoes of my words will ring in my ears as the year progresses or will those words fade? Will the new me remember what the old me wrote? Rest assuredly that the me which receives the letter will not quite be the me which wrote it, and cannot be. I have already planted the seeds of change in my life and now I will water them with time and nurture the growth of those new bits springing to life. A new habit takes thirty days to become fixed, just as an old habit takes thirty days to cease, regardless of whether the habit in question is life-affirming or life-destroying. Hopefully, I can stay with good habits for the needed passage of time... that fire in which I burn.