The Zozobra tradition is well-known to anyone who has ever lived in Santa Fe, New Mexico. It's not really associated with New Year, occurring yearly in September, but its essence reminds me of this day -- New Year's Eve -- and the wishes that many hope to be fulfilled on that day.
Zozobra is not even a "tradition" in the most real sense. It was invented by Santa Fe artist William Howard Shuster, Jr. in 1924. But every year since then it has been celebrated, and thus has fallen into the category of "tradition" among Santa Feans. The basic concept is that they build an enormous (up to 60 feet tall) effigy of a Native American Bad Guy in a Santa Fe park and then burn the sucker ceremoniously. What makes it memorable as a tradition is that the original artist thought of it as a way to "break with the past." Thus participants in his made-up ceremony got to write the things about the previous year that they wanted to let go of and consign to the past on tiny scrips of paper and insert them into the Zozobra effigy, and thus see them go up in flames (and thus theoretically be consigned to the past and left behind) at the end of the ceremony. I always liked the basic idea, but at the same time I always found it kinda lacking in "concept," because the participants in this ceremony were being asked to focus on the Bad Shit that happened to them in the previous year, as opposed to the Good Shit. So here's my proposed alternative to Zozobra -- the Anti-Zozobra, or What I Really *Liked* About Last Year, And Wish To Celebrate. If anyone wishes to contribute their thoughts to this thread, you are cordially invited to do so. If anyone wishes to crap on it by only focusing on the petty shit you focused on all year, fuck you. This thread isn't for you. It's for people who can step aside from the petty shit for a bit and pen a few words about how wonderful and magical the last year was for them, and how much they appreciated the magic of it. Having penned the challenge, I guess I have to go first: * It's actually very difficult for me to pinpoint the *most* magical moments of this last year, because there were so many of them. Also, I don't want to bore people with events that are meaningful only to me, so I'll stick to a few highlights. * I got to live in -- and explore -- the medieval/modern nexus that is Leiden, the Netherlands. That was, and continues to be, a total adventure. * I got to -- as a result of some family debts that had to be paid off and thus drew me out of semi-retirement -- go off for nine months to Paris and work there. Bummer, dude. Having to go to Paris every week and work there. I'm not sure I will ever recover. :-) * I got to -- on "home leave" from one of these weeks away in Paris -- spend time with my dog Pippin before he had to be urged forward to that Big Dog Park In The Sky, Where They've Never Heard Of Things Like Leashes. Our last moments together were as magical as our first; I can ask nothing more of a life companion. * I get to continue to spend time with his former companion Paris, walking along the canals of Leiden. I cannot fully do justice to how wonderful this experience is in words, so I shall not even try. * I got to sit in cafes in Paris and write about Whatever The Fuck I Wanted, something I've been dreaming of doing for much of my life. Few of these musings have ever been posted to FFL, but I'm more than proud of the ones that were, and more proud of the ones that were published elsewhere. * Now that the debt is paid off and I can kick back and semi-retire again, I get to work at home on a number of contracts that allow me *to* work at home, and still earn a comfortable living. * Along the Way, I got to live in over 20 cool neighborhoods in Paris. More than most lifetime Paris residents can ever claim. I got to be there on a daily and nightly basis, and thus learn what it felt like to live there. Such a deal. * Now that the gig's over, I get to live in a medieval neighborhood of a medieval town and see what it's turned into after several centuries and much progress, or the lack thereof, depending on your outlook. * On a personal level, here in Leiden I get to live with a number of wonderfully sympatico people, including a rather lovely five-year-old who teaches me more about life and what in it is important every day than I learned from any of my previous spiritual teachers in 63 years of seeking in all of that time. What is not to LIKE about all of this? I write all of these things here, so that they may go up in smoke at the end of my Anti-Zozobra celebration and be *celebrated*, not left behind. If any year in my future is as fulfilling and as wonderful as this one has been for me, I will die a very happy camper indeed. If you have similar thoughts of gratitude or thanks to offer to the events in your life in 2013, feel free to post them to this thread. If all you want to do is bring someone down, stay the fuck away and post on one of the more normal FFL threads.
