A lot has been coming up for me around significance. It seems that with every new year, there arises a kind of magical thinking about how one day, or hour, or minute, can set the tone for an entire day, year, or decade. While I understand and embrace the parts of such thinking that can be empowering, a larger part of me bristles at the weightiness and unnecessary significance we place on one moment, especially one that is not self-designated. Some people are motivated by assigning an exterior finite measurement of time to allow themselves (or pressure themselves) into making changes. I get it. But for myself, I feel that when these changes come about because of some exterior element (such as time or a holiday on the calendar) I am not in my own grounded power to create change. Our growth and loving self-discipline can come at any minute of any day of any year. How much more opportunity does that open up for us? Instead of allowing us the complacency of continuing bad habits until the stroke of midnight, we can put down the our old story NOW, which is the only moment of power we ever truly possess.
 
Believe me, I am writing this from a history of designating EVERYTHING as significant. As a child, I lived under the weight of self-imposed superstitions about what I had to be thinking as I walked over a crack, stepped over a threshold, as the plane took off or touched ground, and pretty much anything you can think of. Although we didn’t have quite the same terminology when I was growing up, I can pretty safely say now that I had OCD. In fact, I still sometimes feel myself falling into the old patterns, which is why I step lightly around this time of year. I believed that I could create all the “good” or “bad” that came at me through the smallest of insignificant actions. Although I was trying to engage my own (intuitive yet unsophisticated) understanding of how to manifest, I was missing the big picture.
Manifesting is supported by feeling as good as possible as often as possible (which raises the frequency of one’s energy to meet the energy you want more of) combined with inspired action. I believed it came through thoughts (not feelings) I was forcing myself to think during daily actions that I chose to define as “significant.” And honey, there were a lot of them. Not surprisingly, it didn’t make me feel good. In fact, it made me feel like I was constantly on duty. It was exhausting, and ironically, I was blocking any flow and ease by constantly grasping at the illusion of control. Although intermittently feeding my compusion might have thrown a few endorphins my way from time to time, the vibration this desperate energy created didn’t make the space for true positive manifestation. I needed to be able to eventually trust, have faith in something greater, release, and let go.
 
It’s an endearing glimpse at our own vulnerability that we place so much focus on the start of a new year. Every culture has its own rituals and superstitions, though the time of year might be scattered throughout the calendar. We’re all just trying to find whatever power we can over the events of an upcoming year, decade, century, or millennium. My friend (and kick ass goddess Witch) Amanda Yates Garcia writes in her brilliant book “Initated” about the egregore. They are energetic beings created by peoples’ highly charged thoughts and emotions. “Egregores arise spontaneously from a roaring crowd at a football game, a political rally, a church meeting or concert, and then disperse just as fast… Cities have egregores, and houses; even groups of friends can create egregores. Neither positive nor negative, the egregore is simply what is is.” I love this description of the frenzied energy that can take place about what we’re doing at the stroke of midnight. It defangs the egregore of “The New Year” in and of itself, and places our the power back into our own hands, where it originated, and where we have access to it 365 days of the year. We created the stroke of midnight, and we can create change at any moment of our time here on earth. 
 
If you’re empowered by the New Year egregore, have at it. If it works for you, work that shit and enjoy. But if you’re like me and have been on the quest to disempower any real or perceived forced outside influence on your own personal evolution, I invite you to wink at the New Year egregore, and then get back to focusing on your own path and following your own rhythm and timing. Allow yourself the space, care, trust, and patience to unfold into what you want to create this year. 
 
And I’m way more into the cycles of the moon, anyway. They’re chill.