Closing the last year’s chapter and preparing space in which the new year can unfold.
From sometime before Winter Solstice on through much of January, I’m always deeply immersed in the process of closing the last year’s chapter of my life and preparing space in which the New Year can begin to unfold.
Some of that process is practical, necessary: closing the books for my practice and my mail-order business. Removing last year’s files/records from my desk. Organizing tax records for my annual February 1st tax appointment. Updating the information in the letter of instruction that goes with my will. Creating new, empty folders for the papers that will be generated all over again in this new year
Some of it has become ritual for me: I go through my clothes, my cupboards, my storage baskets, all my caches of “stuff.” It’s a time of winnowing, letting go of and recycling things that I feel done with, that don’t seem relevant or useful or meaningful to me anymore. As I rearrange what I’m keeping, I get to revisit treasures I’d forgotten about. And, I get to make some empty spaces, some visible room for whatever new treasures the year ahead may bring.
Then, there’s what always feels like a daunting part of the cycle: putting my flower garden to sleep. Winters here (southern California) are quite mild, so my tiny vegetable, fern and bulb in-ground garden patches can be left to continue their growing. Not so my small container flower gardens. Each January the lavishly lush, exuberant and wild tangle of my uncontained container plantings–roses, geraniums, fuchsias, euryops, gold coin, gloriosa daisies, clock vine, honeysuckle–need to be pruned. Cut back almost to nubbins so that the roots can rest and replenish themselves for their next season of growing.
It can be so hard to face this task–so hard to give up the wild abundance, the overflowing, flagrant sprawl. So hard to bare the bones of this garden. Some years I stall, putting it off till well into February. Other years, I sort of sneak up on it, doing one or two pots at a time over a period of weeks. I’m often into whining and moaning about having to go through this painful process yet again!
Still, each year, I finally get on with it. I cut and prune and haul the trimmings deep into the surrounding orchard so that they can compost back into the soil. Once I’m finally into it, I become possessed. I work even into the dark of the evening, sometimes by moonlight–my frizzy hair full of all kinds of leaves and twigs. Arms and legs collecting scratches as I burrow deep into the roses and honeysuckle. And then, it’s done!
For days afterward I repeatedly wander out to marvel at this incredibly Zen space, this “crewcut” dormant place. I fall in love with the spare ness, the visual stillness. My body feels the hum underground. I can feel the roots, alive and vibrating. Relieved of the task of supporting leaves and flowers, they are resting deeply, feeding themselves, rebuilding their stores of energy. I want spring to wait a while; I want time to revel in this wonder, this starkness. How I could have forgotten this magic? This joy in living with the bones of my garden?
I give thanks each year for these teachings, these reminders that rich and thrumming life goes on even when nothing much is visible “above ground.” That letting go is always the beginning of letting in what waits for open space into which to be born.
Originally published January 2001
