On the last day of the year, finally back to Barcelona, I try my best to cooperate with everything.

I go to the market and try to kill the hunger for space with shopping for dinner, and for midnight snacks, and for lunch for tomorrow… It’s nice and sunny outside, and I wish for the mountains, and some festive mood which of course I won’t find it outside.

When I enter to the local butcher’s shop, to see what they have, I already know that I can’t hold back: I have to follow the customs I grew up in, habits, that drag me to by some fine and good meet: chicken for the old year, and pig for the new year. To let bad luck fly away, and invite good luck to enter…

Poor porks. How did they earn such a reputation? I don’t know and I am not interested now to look up their history. I try to eat less meat, because yes, I am not vegetarian, I was for three years for long time ago, and though sometimes again I go off meat, I do eat from time to time.

So I do some other shopping (food and drinks, of course), from my way back till putting the chicken in the oven, and even now, I am contemplating on how strong such habits are, that I’d feel somehow “shortened” or “emptied” if I wouldn’t perform these small rites of our families. Rites of my mother. For my granny – the mother of my father – never ever have cooked or baked pork. It was out of her habits.

A few days ago I climbed up to the Gellert Hill in Budapest, and since very long time ago, I felt energised and reconnected with my roots, literally, standing on the top of the hill by some young trees.

Freedom maybe lies in recognising the patterns and customs that govern our daily lives, those little and seemingly insignificant rites that enrich the commemoration of some festive days, and fill our hearts with warmth and some deep inner joy.

We’re heading to some other customs we like, with my partner, sharing our desires with each other for the next year, bringing our hearts close to an inner, invisible fireplace.

It’s important for me to perform rites to mark important days, decisions, the beginning and the ending of some periods, to honor the past and welcome the present… It feels like emptying my basket and making space to new things.

I miss spending my end-of-year with dancing, away in the mountains with dancing tribes of 5 rhythms, or Open Floor, or meditation camp, or Trance dance… I miss it deeply. Maybe I will do a bit of let-this-year-go dance with the silence in the spare room we have, till my chicken gets ready for the dinner.

Have a lovely Sylvester night, my dears, and if you are at the point of giving in to some old custom or habit you inherited from your family, welcome in the club :). Enjoy! And may the new year bless You with everything you need.

Thank you 2016! And welcome, 2017! Thanks for coming :).