Prologue

New Year's Day 2025

my annual january 1st ritual. a deep breath and a blessing over the year that lies ahead.

The new year has arrived with a blast of cold air and a blanket of snow. It is the perfect soft, quiet beginning to twenty twenty-five after a cozy, intimate celebration of bubbles, dance, food, and fireworks at home to bid farewell to twenty twenty-four.

The old has been released and it is time to turn to my letter of dreams, intentions, and wishes to start the year. There will not be any resolutions in this letter to myself. I haven’t made in resolutions in years. Instead, this year, I believe in the power of creating a vision for a year of deep expansion and magic. And setting a mood for how I want the year ahead to feel.

And this year, I am feeling the year of the witch. As I began to say sometime back in the autumn. What that means and how that looks and feels, I don’t really quite know yet. All I know is that I am growing into this new era. And it will inspire how I create and live my everyday life.

The other feeling I have as I enter twenty twenty-five is one that is fresh, quiet, and new. There is something that remains the same and grows deeper, but there is great change on the way too. In these very first liminal hours and days, I feel open and empty - in the best way.

I did an oracle card reading for the year ahead. And, what it revealed to me is deeply magical and simple all at the same time. And completely aligned with my feeling of growing deeper and expanding at the same time.

Doing a reading for the year ahead feels grounding at the beginning of the year, but I often lose steam or feel disconnected to it after a few months. This year, however, I am writing each card of the month in my calendar and using it as inspiration as I move through the weeks of each month. There are so many deep possibilities for anchoring myself and returning to my center - and my intentions for this year - with the start of each new month.

However, the real magic for me is seeing the big picture, seeing all of these cards together and intuiting the story that they tell.

My anchor card this year is the “buds” card signaling new beginnings and expansion. And, to be a bit secretive and mysterious, my love and I have some dreams and plans for our life, which we hope and believe will come to fruition during twenty twenty-five. So, new beginnings and expansion is exactly the vibe we are calling in.

And, then, looking at monthly cards, when read together, they tell me a story of the rhythm of a year, and specifically of the rhythm of this year of new beginnings and expansion.

1. January: Roots

2. February: Earthworm

3. March: Altar

4. April: Tend

5. May: Sow

6. June: Fog

7. July: Butterfly

8. August: Moon

9. September: Sickle

10. October: Sun

11. November: Watering can

12. December: Harvest

I cannot help but notice the magic in this reading. How it begins with roots, the very deepest beginning of growth. And ends with a harvest of the abundance of lessons, memories, experiences, and changes that have unfolded throughout the year.

How each of these months unfold and what is made manifest is what I will be documenting both privately and here on Substack throughout the year.

As I think about how I want to move through twenty twenty-five, I know that I intend to slow down my alignment with the rhythms of the year even more. Last year, I focused on the energy of each month. But, as the year came to a close, I found myself moving from week to week, finding much more presence and inspiration by focusing on just the week ahead. So, this year, I will be continuing to move through the seasons one week at a time, allowing myself to discover and follow the rhythms of life much more slowly and intimately. It feels like the perfect way to remember that things are in constant change and motion, and to bring an even deeper presence to my everyday life.

Often I hesitate to write specific ideas or intentions at the beginning of the year. I think I’ve been afraid to not accomplish or achieve them, leading me to feel a sense of disappointment at the end of the year. And I want to shield myself from letting myself down.

This year, however, in my most witchy ways, I am boldly naming some very specific things that I feel that will manifest as this year unfolds. Things like: being bold and daring in my professional life, writing consistently, returning to a meditation practice, healing relationships, expecting magic, spending more time creating and reading and editing a book that I am working on (we just deleted quite a few streaming services from our account), being more analog (I’m keeping daily notes in a little book instead of using my notes app on my phone), documenting with words and images, and; finally, and most importantly, focusing on home and hearth.

I’ll keep them the rest of my thoughts to myself for now, as I feel that they are my own secret spells. But, I would love to share my 2025 moodboard with you (based on the 12 cards I pulled for my reading for the year ahead). I have been working on it all day long and I am completely in love with it - the mood, the feelings, and all of the symbols that represent what I am sending out to the universe as my dreams, intentions, and wishes for the year ahead.

I feel as sense of anticipation and excitement as I slowly move into twenty twenty-five. Turns out, I don’t have a specific feeling about the year. No one word or mood that I can use to sum up a goal that I have. Rather, the feeling that I have is one of magic, that moves me through the rhythm of a year - from roots to harvest. It will be a year of grounding, growing, changing, and expanding. And one that I simply hope to soak in one magical day at a time.

All love and magic to you as you slowly move into your year. xo. liz.

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the wsc wheel of the year: festivals and seasons