Hellllllo, butt crack of dawn!

Egyptian Calendar with Nut and Geb

Tomorrow we are getting up before dawn, so we can be ready at dawn to celebrate the new year starting tomorrow. It will be a fun day. We will great the new year, clear out the energies from the old year, make music, make offerings, and have a big breakfast feast together. Later will be an auction and raffle. We usually laugh our way through the auction. It can be a competitive crowd, so some of the bidding gets fierce, and the fierceness is entertaining. I probably won't do a lot of bidding, since I have no money. I did make some sales of my own though, so maybe I'll look for bargains. I have some books from previous years that went for very affordable prices. Tonight we can hear fireworks. I don't know why there would be fireworks tonight, but it is appropriate for us since it is New Years Eve.

Today I bawled like a baby in the ritual. I don't usually cry that much, but it is completely normal for people to have big emotional releases. Often I'm jealous because I imagine they feel a big cathartic release and they are getting to a higher level of connection. Having lost my composure, I most feel tired right now. It might feel better later. I might feel like I can let more go. I got more acknowledgement today that it was a hard year, and that this coming year will not be so difficult for me. I know that is a relief, but I don't feel it yet. It was such a difficult year that I still feel exhausted by everything that happened. Maybe tomorrow I'll start to feel the hopefulness and joy of a new, better year. Maybe I will feel it when things start to happen in my life that make me feel more in control of my life, and that I can move on from the intense disappointment I still feel at being forced out of a job I worked so hard for and put so much of myself into, the disappointment of being bullied in hockey and in ASCA and not getting the support I thought I should have, and the constant drumbeat of social and political events in this country that highlighted the injustice we live with and perpetuate. This last year it's felt like I couldn't accomplish anything, move forward with anything, change anything. I'm hoping this year I'll see the support I have more clearly, and that will give me the courage to go back into battle. Onward!

Even if I don't feel better tomorrow, I see it coming. I developed a cold sore on my lip last night, and it keeps getting big despite the time I'm spending trying to be at a higher level of consciousness that the level that cold sores live on. The timing is interesting. I keep having intensifications of the physical discomforts I'm having like dizziness, headaches, sore throat, muscle cramping, nausea, followed by a dramatic alleviation of the symptoms. Then they return. The cold sore hurts! A lot! My left ankle has felt all day like I twisted it, but I don't remember doing anything to it. I've been poring "special" purified water on my lip, and we have the Sekhmet healing baths on Sunday, but I have a feeling my detox period will be longer than a few days of retreat.