What if instead of New Year resolutions, which essentially translate as “a deal made with the future,” it’s okay to say, well, it’s something like this, but I’m not exactly certain as of yet what that really means for me, what feels aligned for me, what feels truth for me.

Wouldn’t that feel a) more honest and b) give us the ability then to open up a space for reflection and a deeper enquiry as to why this resolution is present in the first place?

It might not be ours. It might be stemming from a “should.” It might be out of guilt or shame or approval. It might be what we think we ought to be doing when it holds no meaning for us in truth.

Maybe we’re lying to ourselves!

Or, maybe we haven’t dug our nails deep enough into the earthy flesh of what exactly we truly, madly, deeply, desire.

So maybe the true resolution is simply a curious step toward this. That this is too far for us to go at this moment. That we need more time to simmer in the pot of Winter’s underworld dreaming time. Or maybe the true resolution is something else entirely that’s actually lying below the surface. A feeling we want to behold instead. It’s just we’ve misplaced the truth on to something else. Perhaps the resolution is actually something far more intimate and quieter and holy that we realise.

I believe that how resolutions are made is so bizarre. It’s like we pluck something totally unconnected to our actual embodied experience of our lives, that feels way off from the linear path we’re walking, and even further away from the inner tango we’re engaged with as we live out our lives. Just because that’s what we think we ought to do.

And then we wonder why this fizzles away without fame nor fanfare.

For me, rather than resolutions, I like to take on a word, or upon occasion, a few words, to act as a guide for the year ahead.

These words will have already be making themselves known for at least a few weeks before the start of the new year. And this makes sense when you think about the fact that we’re in the underworld. In the dreaming time. When we’re receiving the greater wisdom as our sleeping ear is pressed to the ground listening to the echoes of the mudded earth’s heartbeat that sings its song to us. It’s a prayer, like a drumbeat. Like a soul beat. That is a morse-coded message to us. If we’re available to it that is. If we’re listening. If we understand that this time is a prayer time as such and that all matters that are true arise out from the dark when the time is right.

Words are spells. And as a writer, I’m a spell master and spellcaster. And as all good sorcerers know, you have to be bloody careful what wishes you write as you do so!

I already have three words that I’m going to take on for 2025. One is an old friend who has risen up before, a few years ago. And it has returned. No doubt to deepen and ripen its wisdom and medicine as a ripple through all areas of my life. But in particular, my heart. For, are we not ultimately guided by the heart? Even when the body, or desire, or life, or something external catches our attention and demands our allegiance. It all comes back to the heart leading us. And I want to be led. By my heart. Self-leadership. To parent with true love, my body and my heart. I’m learning. Still learning.

Our resolutions are the stretch into becoming. They’re calls to growth. They provide a silken ladder for us to climb. No rush. Don’t forget to take in the view. And to pause every now and then to check that our footing is strong and steady, and that we’re still following the right thread of our heart.

Sometimes, our true resolutions are not glamorous or bold. They’re plain and simple and ordinary, arriving in brown-paper wrapping, with simple twine binding their secrets. They require us to be on our knees. To be in suppliance for this gift. And to be ready. Oh yes. We have to be ready. And willing.

There’s a humility with true resolutions. An understanding that what we’re calling for is about growth. That there will be challenges and tests aplenty. That we will have choices to make and take. That sometimes we’ll fail, gloriously and maddeningly. And we’ll be shedding the old skin, the one of the year and years passed, in order to do so.

Taking on your resolutions is not for the faint of heart—and we forget that bit. Forget that we have our part to play too. But only if we’re willing that is.

Don’t waste your words this coming year sweet ones. Don’t waste your spells. Think about the story of Sleeping Beauty, and how each of her fairy Godmothers bestowed all sorts of blessings and hopes and wishes upon the girl as soon as she was born. And yet it was the resentful one, the hurt one, the wounded one, who did the most damage via her words. It’s better to think through carefully what you would want to be graced for the year to come, as you’re born into a new year, just in case. Just in case.

So, here are some tips and treats from this wordsmith witch to you, in order to gather the finest ingredients to magic your year ahead!

How to Make a Resolution Revolution:

Step 1: Just as you’d wipe your feet upon entry into a grand palace of wondrous things, you will need to do the same here. Don’t take the muddy tendrils of last year with you. Take time to let go of, mourn, if need be, complete what needs to be completed, untangle the wreaths of any loose strings and throw them to the proverbial, even real, fire. Come empty-handed as much as you’re able to.

Step 2: Speaking of empty hands—arrive to this medicine with your palms open to receive. Open, not in grasp or contraction. Allow your hands to be like wings—of the finest feathers to touch against your skin, where you meet the world. Don’t come to the New Year like a beggar.

Step 3: Listen. Listen. Listen. What would life have you know? What calls to you from the echoes of the future? How is best to serve the beauty of you? What training of the heart is required of you now? What turns you on? Delights you? What feels daring and makes your heart drum beat faster in time to this aliveness? You might journal with this. Be in silent prayer. Spend time with the woods. No rush. No rush. No rush.

Step 4: Be open to receive. And trust that not everything needs logic nor reason. The soul doesn’t deal with such limitations my dear! There may be words. Images. Feelings. A glimmer of. Catch each of these like seeds and let them gather together.

Step 5: Sift through these clues and take only the ones that you feel some kind of resonance with. A magnetic force of attraction. A shy tease and flirtation with. Any that feel empty are not yours, so, give them back to the earth with thanks.

Step 6: Formulate your resolutions as quests. Or swallow down the words like medicine. Know that by doing so you are saying that you are ready and willing. To do the work, to show up for, to make those choices that keep on aligning with your heart.

Step 7: Now get up and get out and live. Dance your own dance. Speak your own songbird words. Live as if this is the only life that you have. And enjoy every goddamn moment of it all!

Aho X

And, if you would like to attend my “SoulFull Sorcery for the End of the Year ~ A FREE Series of Medicine Musings,” then you can register here.

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