New Year’s Threshold

This spell is intended to make your dreams for the coming year into a literal threshold for you to cross, which harnesses the human mind’s natural tendency to context shift the moment you move through a door into a different room. As time segues from one year to the next, you will also move from one space into another, with the threshold you have made below you to reinforce your dreams.

At the end of the steps are several adaptation options for various circumstances.

Ingredients:

Required

Pen, paper, scissors

Optional

Tape or glue, art supplies, candle, road opening oil

Steps

1. Think of a word that embodies what you want for yourself and for your community. For the best effect, you want a single word that carries a lot of emotional weight, but is also not something too generic. For instance, one year before the pandemic, I wanted a lot of words – strong, outspoken, protective, unapologetic, embracing, and wild. The word I decided upon that, for me, included all of these words? “FIERCE.” So choose something that really calls to you, something that you can keep in your mind as a touchstone. But if you need a phrase, that’s fine, as long as it isn’t too long.

2. Now think of the iconography that, to you, captures the essence of that word or phrase. When I was doing the “fierce” threshold, I chose storms, wolves, tigers, drag, and fire.

3. Then choose a room in your house or apartment, or a space in your living area, in which you do or feel something that is closest to both the iconography and the connotations of the word/phrase you’ve chosen. For “fierce,” I felt most outspoken and unapologetic with my cooking, and since we had a gas stove that could align with the fire iconography, I chose the kitchen. You can also create a threshold even if you have only one room – place two boxes or two chairs back to back in front of the space in your living area that is closest to what you’re after, and separate them until they feel like they’re the right amount of space apart. If you have a vehicle, you can even choose to drive somewhere you go often, and use the act of getting out of or off of your vehicle to trigger that transitional, liminal space. It should be somewhere you can see on a regular basis, though, to ensure you’re reminded throughout the year of that liminal moment.

4. Determine the needed width and depth of the threshold you’re going to create. You can measure a doorway, or measure your own hips and add space until it feels right.

5. Get some paper that you can assemble to be the right length to cover the entire width of the threshold you’re going to use. I use regular printer paper and tape it together, but you can use craft paper, parchment paper, or whatever you wish, and use folds to connect them if you want. Whatever you choose, you’re going to need it to be a long rectangle, so be prepared to trim it.

6. Trim and assemble your paper to be the right width for your threshold. I recommend that the long side of the rectangle be at least 24 inches/61 cm, and the short side of the rectangle be no more than 5 inches/13 cm. It has to feel at least a little bit like a doorway, not a hallway. That said, it does not need to be perfect! You don’t need to have the edges perfectly aligned or anything like that.

7. Once you’ve trimmed, taped, and glued your threshold together, draw the icons you’ve chosen on the paper, in a way that feels good to you. It doesn’t have to be pretty! I am a terrible artist but for fierce, I still drew a tiger-striped fire, some paw prints, and lightning coming out of purple clouds. You don’t even have to know precisely what something looks like to use it as an icon – the purpose of drawing is to cue a different part of your brain than the word does. Feel free to use whatever art supplies you have and like, but they’re not necessary. Also, if you are a more tactile than a visual person, please feel free to use a collage for your threshold! Double down on textures or sensations you love. You can even use fragrances, if you want.

• 7a. If you have a favorite road opener oil, it’s useful to add a line of that on the top of your threshold, so that it will be on the side of the room/space you’re stepping into.
• 7b. If you like candle work, you can dedicate a candle to the threshold you’re making, using the same iconography. Light your candle after step 9, and mark your threshold with a dot of the wax from that candle once it has burned long enough.

8. A few minutes before it is officially New Year’s in your tradition, place your threshold on the floor in the doorway or the place you have chosen. Repeat “I embrace the new era. As I move into this moment, I am ready to receive” 3x.

9. The moment the clock strikes 12 or the sun sets or rises on the beginning of your New Year’s day, say loudly “A very [your chosen word or phrase] New Year!” as you step/roll/slide over the threshold.

10. Celebrate as you normally would. But keep your threshold! After your celebration, put it somewhere you can see or access it easily throughout the year.

Adaptation options

– Use a stick instead of paper. Etch simple icons, or even sigils or runes, on a stick that is the right length, then keep or hang that stick somewhere your room/living space.

– Use a line of stones with icons drawn on them. As long as it looks like a border, it’ll trigger the right brain space.

– Instead of moving across your threshold, move your threshold across you. You can make it small enough to hold it and lift it across your body, from your lower limbs to above your head, or have a friend do it.

– If you will be at someone else’s house for New Year’s Eve, you can create your threshold ahead of time and place it in your house before you leave. In the moments before the cross into the new year, you can speak the initial invocation silently and use meditation or focus on your breath as a proxy for your threshold. The bottom of your exhale can be your threshold, the moment when your lungs are mostly empty and are about to be filled, or the top, when you are full and are about to release. You can also use a kiss as a threshold: a held breath, a moment of intimacy that passes quickly. Be creative. 😉

– If you’re in a very restrictive environment or circumstances, you can build your threshold mentally and imagine yourself crossing it.

Enjoy!