Enchanted Life

Happy New Year from ALIVE! I’m Cristina Redko. You are now listening to a Greenlandic Inuit woman singing what she wrote to her father:

"You put on the light in the darkest time of winter solstice,
 At yule you lit the candles
 to remember your roots, family, your children and to the people.
 We will always remember deepest in our hearts 
 wherever we are in the world".

Yule traditionally starts the night of winter solstice and lasts until January 1. It can be traced back to the Norse people who celebrated Yule as a way of connecting with the natural world. Yule is the celebration of the return of light and it is the time to reflect on the year and look forward as daylight increases little by little each day. Because of the shift of seasons, Yule is a celebration of the sun, of rebirth and renewal, and the continuation of life. This is also a time for listening to our own inner wisdom… to let go of the old and welcoming the new:

Happy New Year, Happy New Year, Happy New Year!

Decorating with greenery, hanging ornaments, the traditional lighting of the tree, caroling, bonfires, flickering candles, and gift-giving are all traditions that originated with Yule. My gift-giving to you, my dear listeners, will be to read the

"Manifesto for an enchanted life…

1. Everything around you is alive: believe it. Tell stories to stones, sing to trees, start conversations with birds. Build relationships. You’ll never be lonely again.

2. To be fully in your body is to be fully alive. Get out of your head and into the world.

3. Look for the wonder wherever you go. Be all your life, as American poet Mary Oliver suggested, 'a bride married to amazement'.

4. Embrace mystery – don’t be afraid of what you don’t know.

5. Cultivate your mythic imagination: the inner and outer landscape of myth.

6. Know your place. Learn to belong, because wherever you go, there you are. There is nowhere else real to be.

7. Cleave to the local and the ethical. Cultivate community spirit, and autonomy.

8. Slow down.

9. Create. Buy handmade. Live folklorically.

10. Don’t have a career: have a life. Find your calling – but, above all, find your meaning in the community of the world.

11. Foster meaningful ritual; make each day a ceremony, or make a ceremony in each day.

12. Cherish otherness, in all its forms; confront in yourself, and explore, the forms of otherness which make you uncomfortable or afraid.

13. Treasure change: it’s the stuff from which lives are forged. Stop looking for the eternal and immutable, and enter the daily dance with the transitory.”

“Manifesto for an enchanted life” was written by Sharon Blackie, another one of my great teachers. Sharon Blackie works in the interface of psychology, mythology, and ecology. The Enchanted Life is just one of her many books. Check her website at sharonblackie.net. 

Wishing you a Happy New Year!

Cristina Redko, PhD