Honorable Closure

A ritual to end the year, or any transitional moment, and some of your year-end rituals

Hi :) Happy belated Solstice, full cold moon, and Merry Everything, especially this window of time aka Twixmas, where everything slows and it’s challenging to know exactly what we should be doing. This meme sums it up well. 

Cred: @hurrahforgin

I’m in Minneapolis enjoying an unseasonably warm and brown holiday season with family and pals. It’s a month since I published here which has been something gnawing at me every day I don’t publish. I was trying to write a few times a month and I’m not quite there yet—this post was supposed to be done last week and has gone through too many iterations, but done is better than perfect and it’s coming to you a day before the new year instead. I grant myself grace for letting it go and publishing when I had the proper time and attention to do so. I get less tolerant of being so hard on myself with each passing day and develop better behavior around it, but it’s still a battle here and there. If this is something you also struggle with, I wish for you the same acceptance and grace for yourself. Truly. You are doing enough and are enough. Onward.

Mighty Mississippi Reflection from Franklin Bridge | 12/27/23

Note: I put a call out for your end-of-year rituals on the socials a few weeks back and got some amazing responses on ways you honor the year and pave the way for what’s next. I’m including a round-up of those at the end of this post. Thank you for sharing your practices with me. They were a joy to read and I look forward to incorporating a few in the new year. 

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Tis the season for year-end rituals—getting quiet, reflections, intentions, goal setting, resolutions, and the like—marking our transition from what was to what may be. 

I’m a flexible ritualist, someone who has a set of presence, reverence, and reflection practices in the day-to-day and significant moments. These include daily journaling and walks, frequent adventures to connect with the wild, acknowledging season changes and moon cycles, marking sobriety milestones, year-end reflection, and intention setting, etc. I’m always evolving and so are my rituals.

As far as year-end goes, I’m not a resolution person. Winter’s rhythm, the post-holiday slow down, and my Capricorn tendencies call me to reflect paying respect to what was and is—what I did, who I did it with, how I did it—and ground in my blessings, process, and progress—what worked well, what opportunities there may be, things I want to let go of, things I want to carry forward, any loose ends that need to be tied up. I value and cherish this time and the lens that hindsight provides. It is from this place of seeing and being with all that was and is that I can move forward with genuine intention (more on that later).

Here’s an example of a reflection ritual from 2021. I write out the year pulling out milestones around personal relationships, spirituality, service, work, and holistic health. I recommend carving out space and time where you’ll be alone and free of interruption *this may include communicating to fam members what you are doing, shutting off your phone, and eliminating other distractions, etc.

This year, my reflection process began a few weeks back while writing a note to an old mentor whom I haven’t spoken to in some time. I wrote the following:

It's been a busy and eventful year. I turned 40, left my sweet cob house in the woods, moved in with my love and his boy, continued my learnings as a novice homesteader, had my busiest year yet consulting for several clients in the natural products, holistic health, and conscious private equity space, facilitated the Forest Bathing portion of the first Living Wild Retreat, attended UC Berkeley's Executive Leadership Coaching Institute for some professional development as I build my coaching practice, traveled to Minnesota frequently to support my dad and stepmom with his ongoing encephalitis diagnosis (inflammation of the brain). I also managed to sneak in a few trips—Santa Fe in the Spring to celebrate my and another friend’s 40th, Austin for work, Benton Hot Springs, and a road trip up the 395 just a few weeks ago where we soaked in the deep quiet and magic of the desert in the grasslands of the Sierras. Oh, and my mom made it out for a really sweet visit. Finally and not surprisingly, I try to spend as much time outdoors as I can and live in a space of deep gratitude for all I have and all that I am. Some days I succeed, and some days I struggle.  

And just like that, I had my big beautiful year in front of me sans that dark period mid-summer because my heart was torn between two places and the people in them, and all of the other nuances of decision-making, relating, doing, not doing, etc. of all these bigger moments. Just looking at it in this form gave me pause and a foundation from which I could dive deeper.

You know how you do something and one day you find out it has a name you’ve never heard of and then that name and definition of the thing solidifies your understanding so you merge the two and level up? Well, that’s what happened with Honorable Closure.

I heard the term for the first time recently when it was used to close a meeting with acknowledgments, appreciations, and apologies (shout out to the ab fab Jennifer Caleshu and the BECI crew). I’d done this in past lives (Whole Foods Market love tubs are the jam IYKYK), however now had a name for being present during an ending and got curious about the term and dug a bit deeper. 

Honorable closure, the intentional and dignified conclusion to an aspect of life or relationship, marked by acknowledgment, appreciation, and closure rituals that allow a sense of completion and transition to something new, was coined by the late, great Angeles Arrien who studied and brought forward indigenous wisdom and principles across continents as a means to teach and lead us to a higher spirituality and a better world (if you have not read the “The Four-Fold Way: Walking the Paths of the Warrior, Teacher, Healer, and Visionary, highly recommend). On rituals for transition, she said:

"All societies have rituals to acknowledge the major life transitions of birth, initiation, marriage, and death. Ritual is the conscious act of recognizing a life change and doing something to honor and support the change through the presence of such elements as witnesses, gift-giving, ceremony, and sacred intention. In this way, human beings support the changes they are experiencing and create a way 'to fit things together.' These practices also teach us “to be good stewards of transition ensuring we are being faithful to the great gift of life, and take nothing for granted.”

The Four Practices of Honorable Closure

*The definitions and questions below are modified from Arrien’s protege, Patrick O’Neill, and can be found in full here.

Gratitude: Recognizing the blessings, lessons, mercies, and protections, the four portals of gratitude, which keep our hearts open, according to Arriens.

• Who and what are you most grateful for? 

• How can you express this to them/it? *This dovetails into the next one, but I’ve been sending notes to folks thanking them for specific lessons they’ve taught me or ways they’ve contributed positivity to my life. I firmly believe that we are the gift, so this is a sweet and simple way to acknowledge those people who make a difference.

Positive Impact: Acknowledging the people and things that left an indelible mark on our lives. 

• Who or what made a positive impact on your life this year? 

• What were the characteristics of this impact and how did it shift perspective or change you? 

• How can you model these characteristics moving forward?  

Challenge: Reflecting on difficulties, growth, and how we navigated them. 

• What was hard this year? 

• How did you meet it?

• What resources did you call upon? How did you grow from it (or what growth can you identify at this time)?

Reparation: Taking inventory of where we’ve not shown up as our best selves in relationships or situations (with ourselves and others).

• Where (and with whom) have I been resentful, selfish, dishonest, or fearful (borrowing from the AA 10th step daily inventory playbook here).

• Are there unresolved conflicts or misunderstandings I need to address in my relationships? 

• Do I owe amends and/or will I have regrets if I leave important things unsaid or undone with someone/something?

I loved the idea of looking at year-end through this lens: being a good steward of transition, consciously recognizing the change, evolution, and opportunity to “fit things together” in a way I hadn’t before by approaching it with a different process of inquiry. My favorite thing about HC is that I have a name for something I’ve practiced in other ways with an expanded understanding AND that I can use it for a variety of things, from simple to more complex. I look forward to seeing how it informs my direction/intention(s) for ‘24.

Which is a nice segue to intention setting and some of your rituals. Briefly, I have found a few things very helpful in setting intentions for the new year:

• Animal Totem—

  Elizabeth Gilbert
  has inspired a few rituals over the years, but this is one of my faves: Get up at dawn and go for a walk with the woods and whatever wild animal you see first is your “totem” for the year. My preferred book to look up the spiritual significance and connection we have to animals is “The Shaman’s Guide to Power Animals” by Lori Morrison. 

• A word or three words—Upon my annual reflection work, I’ve consistently chosen a single intention or three words for the year (picked this one up from

  Chris Brogan
  years ago). I check in with my intention(s) periodically throughout the year to see if it’s still relevant, hold myself accountable, and evolve things accordingly.

• Oracle Cards—I’m a huge fan of Kim Krans Wild Unknown Oracle cards. I have her Archetypes, Alchemy, and Animal Spirit decks all of which I love for different reasons. Sometimes I pull one or a few cards and if I have time and am feeling it, I’ll do a 12-month spread.

  

  The Wild Unknown Animal Spirit Deck by Kim Krans

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And now for best part, some of the rituals you shared via social media. These are varied, some of which happen before year-end, some in the new year, on birthdays, etc., but all to mark the transition. 

“All year I maintain a jar of special memories written on little slips of paper. At the end of the year, I collage all of those little pieces in a journal around some sort of central image. I also choose three guiding words for the new year and collect quotes/images related to them on a private board on Pinterest. Lastly, I cast a rune stone series on New Year’s Day.” -Jennifer Kane

I love reviewing what books I read — which still stick with me, which weren’t memorable at all, which I want to recommend, and what I want more or less of in my reading life the year to come. -Lauren Melcher

I usually spend NYE alone. I write my gratitude. What I have learned. What I still feel I need to learn. I write down all the things I have yet to let go and then I light candles to leave in that year what I don't want to bring into the next. Then, I set my intentions for the new year. At midnight, after the "leave it behind" candles have burned out, I light the new ones at midnight. -Tereson Dupuy

A ritual we do on NYE with our kids is writing down things we want to leave in the past, write them down on paper, and burn them. Then offering up a prayer to bring in the things we do want. We do something similar on Solstice as well. Offering up prayer and sending good things into the light. -Nichol Cole DePoint

I try not to focus on regret or mistakes or negative things that may have happened and try to look at what I loved this year and resolve to be additive in the new year. We went camping 3 times and loved it. We camped at a new park and loved it. Great, I wanna camp 4x next year and try 2 new parks. Basically, what made me happy and how do I get more of that? I don't do real resolutions anymore. I'm never going to be a better housekeeper or make my bed every morning, or keep my car tidy, no matter how often I resolve those things. Cause I really just don't care much about that. -Julie Covar

Last year, my partner and I made lists of things that give and take energy. We each made our lists, 1 for each category, and then compared them. It was something so simple. But I it helped guide our personal and couples decisions in such a cool and harmonious way! -Lauren Kebschull

Not a year-end, but I love this from Kim Insley:

I write myself a letter on my birthday each year (in June). It’s to future Kim, to be opened on the next birthday. Not a reflection, but hopes and dreams for the year to come. I tend to get pretty close!

Others from the grammy …

Happy New Year to you. I wish you all you seek and more. As always, I'd love to hear from you. Were you familiar with Honorable Closure? If so, how? And what rituals hit for you this time of year, or anything else on your mind?