Culture-jamming Your Intention Setting

Hello friends ~ greetings from the other side of the new year portal with 2017 well on it’s roll.

Here I share my contemplations on the 'seasons greetings' flung about with wild abandon in December and January each year, and plant seeds of potential for other forms of goal and intention setting, celebration and ritual.

This may seem a little counter-cultural, but I just gotta tell you: when the December festive train rolls into town (particularly here in Australia), it increasingly strikes me as odd to see folks dress up in arctic clothing as Santa Claus, singing songs about silent nights and sleigh bells ringing, while having the oven cranking out a roast in the middle of a hot summer's day – all in the name of Christmas. And then there are the parties for the coming of the new Gregorian year – great spectacles and gatherings of heightened celebration, peaking at the countdown of “10...9...8...7...”, expectant eyes watching the tick-tock of a clock in an OCD-like need to see it happen.

For the clock-in of this current year, I threw tradition to the wind and slept through the much-celebrated collective countdown. Instead, I rose in the pre-dawn hours, amidst birdsong and gentle dawn light, migrating to my favourite local coastal headland to watch the sun rise again over the eastern horizon. This felt far more appropriate and honouring of the newness to be celebrated: a new day, a new year, a new moment of NOW.

I wonder how many others feel the same confusion about the much publicised Christmas & New Year celebrations. Somehow, the concept of the Gregorian calendar being a date-marker for our yearly intentions doesn’t sit comfortably for me in terms of how intentions intersect with the reality of our life. As one with an awareness of the various possibilities for celebration, goal/intention setting and gathering throughout the year long, the concept of saving up all the celebrating, connection, and resolution-setting to this once-a-year period of intensity seems a little...bottled-up.

You see, every month we Earth-dwellers are graced with the ebbs and flows of our planetary companion, the Moon; the new and full moons offering potent energy to set intention and reflect upon our lives both individually and collectively. We also have seasonal waxing and waning – the Winter and Summer Solstice in June and December, along with the Vernal and Autumnal Equinox in April and September. These two planetary ‘drumbeats’ invite us into awareness and interaction on a monthly and quarterly basis in a way that recognises and utilises the seasonal context we’re inherently inclunced by.

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Call me a sucker for small and slow solutions, I find the Lunar and Solar cycle as powerful milestones to work with in considering and manifesting the realities for which we wish. And they can integrate and utilise the institution of Christmas gatherings and New Years resolutions; because, realistically, families may only truly be able to gather together in celebration once a year, and the solstice is a beautiful time to do so. When we do gather, let’s do so in a way that utilises and truly supports each other to live full, grounded and abundant lives. 

To help you culture-jam your reality to have more seasonal and real-time relevance, here are some possibilities to hybridise family gathering and yearly intention-setting:

• At the Winter Solstice (21 June in the southern hemisphere) ::
  
  As the sun is in it’s shortest days and at it’s lowest in the sky, embrace the opportunity for internal time and introspection. Use journalling/art/music (any chosen creative outlet) to acknowledge what you may wish to let go of in your life and set intentions and goals for what you would like to happen in the next 12 months. Spend time resting and restoring yourself with nourishing warm food and activities to help build your core life energy. 
  
  To help release unwanted and unneeded elements from your life, you might like to write them on paper; with a spirit of gratitude for any of the lessons brought to you by those things, burn the paper and spread the ashes on the earth to release them from yourself.
  
  Consider what milestones you wish to achieve in pursuing your goals/intentions in 3 months, 6 months, 9 months, 12 months.
  
  
• At the Spring Eqinox (21 September) :: 
  
  3 months later in the balanced time of equal length of day and night, consider how your goals and intentions have initially progressed since being established. Tweak your plans and approach to achieving your goals and intentions to the reality of your current situation, and continue on manifesting your dreams. 
  
  
• At the Summer Solstice (21 December) :: 
  
  When the day outweighs the night, gather with your friends and family in celebration of the height of the summer sun in it’s longest days of the year. Reflect on how your intentions are manifesting, blooming and illuminating in the world, allowing yourself space to again tweak and recalibrate based on current context. Revel in and appreciate the signs of your hard work showing results toward your intentions. 
  
  
• At the Autumn Equinox (21 March) ::
  
  At yet another time of balance in day and night, review how your goals and intentions are truly coming into form, acknowledging what and how you are harvesting from them, and considering what you might need to release around them. 
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• And returning to the Winter Solstice, again, immerse in the internal realm, releasing what you wish to let go of and conjuring up your next round of goals and intentions as you did 12 months earlier. 

The moon provides a powerful ally in helping you step through your yearly goals and intentions as well. For each new moon occurring from the Winter Solstice, set monthly milestones that step you along to the next phase in reaching your dreams.

• For every new moon, set a monthly intention that steps you closer to the milestones at the next cross-quarter mark (i.e. the next equinox or solstice).
• For each full moon, review and consider how you’re progressing with that monthly goal, allowing the illumination of the moon to help you see how your goals are manifesting for that month.

Ways to support yourself in achieving your dreams:

• Recruit a buddy to keep you accountable, who will witness you working toward what you want in your life. Ask someone you trust to be a supportive figure along the journey.
• Encourage your family to join you in the seasonal goal setting journey. Respect their right to choose whether they join or not, and support them to see the benefits if they’re curious but not fully committed.
• Have a book/folder specifically for your goal setting and recording; use coloured pens and pencils to make it dynamic, engaging, creative & beautiful to you.
• Use nature’s changes to help mark the seasonal progress – for each cross-quarter day, collect and display a few tokens from nature to reflect the season i.e. flowers in spring, foliage in summer, bark in winter.​

Benefits of seasonal goal setting:

• Small and slow solutions allow for a greater sense of resilience to your goals and intentions. By breaking them into smaller iterative chunks, you have less to bite off and chew, allowing each step to naturally lead after the other in manageable bites. 
• Patterns to details allows you to move with the natural energy flows within and around you, helping you more effective use energy to achieve your dreams.
• Apply self regulation and accept feedback by bringing your accountabilities to smaller chunks, giving you space to course-correct on a monthly and quarterly basis if you do happen to find yourself off-track (rather than realising a year later that you veered massively off course).

All power to you as you develop yourself and your life in alignment with life's potent energies.  Please do comment and share your experiences in journeying with the lunar and solar cycles - the more we share, the more we learn and evolve with each other.

And blessings of the season to you, wherever this may find you.  For those in the southern lands (like me), the bright & warm days offer external interconnective moments, out in the world.  For those in the northern lands, hibernation through through the chills and darkness allow a conjuring of new energy to emerge in the coming months.  

​Wherever we are, may we cycle genuinely, potently & co-creatively as the drum beats carry us on!

​Erin ~

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