New moon in January: clearing space for the coming year

As so many of you already know this first day of the new year is also the first new moon of this year. This is truly a great day to start anew. It has been a long time ago since I was so excited to start the new year. I’m overjoyed the Holidays are over and I couldn’t be more thrilled to start this year. For the first time, I have done some "preparatory" journaling about last year’s experiences and achievements and new year’s goals and promises. So I feel really energized and eager to start his year! The reading for this new moon gave me very sound advice for  the month of January. As usual I've chosen the Osho Zen Tarot, which has become my “new moon” deck. 

Osho Zen Tarot

Release: The Burden (Six of Clouds)

 “If life these days feels like just a struggle from the cradle to the grave, it could be time to shrug your shoulders and see what it feels like to walk without these characters on your back. You have your own mountains to conquer, your own dreams to fulfill, but you will never have the energy to pursue them until you release yourself from all the expectations you've gathered from others but now think are your own. Chances are they exist only in your own mind, but that doesn't mean they can't weigh you down. It's time to lighten up, and send them on their way.” 

I've just realized this morning, I've only journaled about my achievements and happy experiences off 2013 but I also wanted to write about the notions and expectations ( from others as well as from myself) I have to let go in order to be able to move forward more freely. Perhaps during all the business of the Holidays I “forgot” to do this. It is so easy to be dragged down by the voices in your head. By naming them and acknowledging them I hope to invalidate them 

Embrace: Letting go (Eight of Water)

“In surrendering to gravity and slipping off the leaf, the drop loses its previous identity and joins the vastness of the water below. We can imagine that it must have trembled before it fell, just on the edge between the known and the unknowable. To choose this card is a recognition that something is finished, something is completing. Whatever it is--a job, a relationship, a home you have loved, anything that might have helped you to define who you are--it is time to let go of it, allowing any sadness but not trying to hold on. Something greater is awaiting you, new dimensions are there to be discovered. You are past the point of no return now, and gravity is doing its work. Go with it: it represents liberation” 

How great is that. What a wonderful and fitting theme for this month. I will certainly review the last year in terms of letting go. I have celebrated my successes already now it is time to take the next step and  let things go and release them. I know I will tremble a bit but when I take it slow I can do this! For today I will clear my house of the leftovers from the Holidays: food, dust bunnies, decorations and make room for the fresh January energy