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Some friends invited me to a New Year’s Eve celebration last week. It’s a group of friends who’ve been getting together every New Year’s for the past fourteen years. They have a tradition of everyone writing their old year’s regrets, disappointments, and things-to-let-go-of on individual scrolls of paper that are tied on that year’s Christmas tree which is then burned in a large fire ring. The above snapshot from my cell phone is of that burning tree.
I was surprised at how meaningful this simple exercise was. I’m “immune” to a lot of emotional traditions for some reason, but this one affected me. It’s a neat idea.
The St. Petersburg First Night Celebration has a bonfire where folks do the very same thing. Asian countries also have a tradition of burning Ghost Money, although that has a different purpose and meaning.
I seem to remember a self-help author a couple decades ago recommending writing troublesome feelings/thoughts/issues on a slip of paper which one burned in a plate. My point is that this seems to be universal human action with significance at a very basic level. I’d never really experienced it before. I’m glad I did. It was liberating.
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