Overview
This New Year’s ritual gives people a chance to take the things they would like to leave behind at year’s end and symbolically use them to create compost, suitable for growing and sustaining new life.
Ritual
Preparation
Supplies:
- Compostable paper, cut into leaf shapes (enough for several leaves for each person)
- A bowl with some dirt in it, large enough to hold everyone’s torn-up leaves
- A tool to mix the torn leaves with the dirt, if you don’t want to use your hands
- Optional: small bags or other containers in case people want to take some of the dirt mixture home for their compost
Before the ritual starts, put the bowl with the dirt in an accessible location near where the leader will be speaking. Arrange for volunteers to be present near the bowl to help mix the torn leaves with the dirt.
Script
Today is the Sunday before a new year. Can you believe it? Now, first things first: that means we are already in the wheel of the new year if you’re somebody who honors the winter solstice as the end of a cycle. If you’re somebody who observes the Western calendar, a New Year is about to start on January 1st. If you’re somebody who follows a Lunisolar calendar, your New Year starts even a little bit further away with the Lunar New Year.
This is important because the ritual that we do today is likely not going to be the end-all, be-all of your preparations for this new wheel of the year, but it’s a great time and place to do this ritual together.
[As appropriate for your climate/setting:] In winter, we often see trees that have bare branches. We still see [lots of] green at this time of year, but there are plenty of empty branches too. Why is that? Where do the leaves go? They fall on the ground, sure, but where do they go after that? Not just into the dirt, no. They transform! They become the dirt. So all of that beautiful, delicious (don’t eat it!) dirt that grows all of those luscious, delicious (you can eat some of them!) plants is built up of all the old things that the trees and nature have let go of.
In just a moment we’re going to do just like the trees do; we’re going to let go of what we don’t need for this season of our lives. We’re going to let the leaves we shed fall back to the dirt that helped them grow. And in fact, we will make this dirt richer by putting in our old beliefs and the stuff we’ve outgrown. Here’s how…
We have compostable paper here that has been cut into leaves. You’re being called to take a leaf, or several, and imbue each leaf with whatever it is that you’re letting go of. Maybe you’re letting go of a habit that doesn’t work for you—people love doing that around New Year’s. Maybe you’re getting rid of a limiting belief, something that was holding you back, because you are realizing that you’ve outgrown this origin story. Maybe you’ll pick something entirely different that you’re letting go of. It is up to you!
As you come up here to the bowl with your little leaf that you’ve imbued with whatever you’re letting go of you, you might rip it! As we know, the leaves make a really good dirt when they break down. In fact, you might even rip up your leaf a couple of times, because only you know how much you need to let go of this. Then you will sprinkle the pieces of it into the bowl of dirt we have here. We will gratefully receive your compost offering as we move through our procession of community members. My helpers will mulch your compost into the dirt.
If movement doesn’t feel good for you, please raise a hand. We will help you get your limiting belief or habit or whatever you’re letting go of, into the bowl of dirt! And for folks watching online, you can always go to this ritual in your own way! You may take something easily-compostable, like the recycled brown paper bags we used to make our leaves, and imbue it with something you’re getting rid of, then give it to the outside!
Complete the ritual by thankfully receiving the compost offerings and “mulching” them into the bowl of dirt (using hands or a tool to mix the dirt and compost). Gardeners in your community may take some of this dirt mixture with them, and/or you may use this dirt to do a RE or whole church planting project.
May you let go of everything you don’t need and may you trust that whatever is for you will come back to you! Thank you and Happy New Year!