Our glorious planet has completed another 365-day circumambulation of the sun and here we are: 2018.

Many fortune tellers and intuitives have shared readings and predictions for the new year and what it has in store. People are making new year’s resolutions, planning for personal improvement.

Personally, I start each year with some traditions.

• I watch fireworks with friends and family.
• We toast with champagne.
• We go to Kotohira Jinsha, a Shinto shrine, for Hatsumode (初詣) where we:
  • Turn in old protective amulets go be burned, which releases old negative energy back to into the ether to neutralize.
  • Get new protective amulets.
  • Drink lucky sake with gold flakes.
  • Eat ozoni if they haven’t run out, yet! (They ran out again this year. 😦 )
  • Get our paper fortunes for the year.
• We eat noodles for long life.

This year, I unexpectedly found myself meditating on the beach with the Buddhist monks from Sacred Falls International Meditation Center, watching the sun rise on the first day of the new year. There was something very pure about setting my intentions for 2018 while watching the darkness fade as the rays of the sun reached out across our little island — like making new year’s resolutions, but doing so by whispering into the ears of the Universe.

I feel as though I’d like to add this to my long list of traditions to bring in the new year.

What traditions to you have, spiritual or not, that are part of your transition into a new year?