Unravel the Clock
Reverie and Ritual for an Untamed New Year
The Gregorian New Year is a colonial fiction—a construct. A neat little line is drawn across the unbroken, feral expanse of time and the Earth doesn’t abide by it. The owl doesn’t tally her years. The river doesn’t resolve to flow straighter.
And yet, here we are, standing at the edge of a fabricated cliff, pretending that January 1st is a beginning, that we can leave ourselves behind with a single midnight breath.
But beginnings, true beginnings, are not clean. They are messy, feral things: seeds cracking open in the dark, roots tangled with decay, storms that rip old branches from trees. There is no clock ticking in the soil. There is no calendar stitched into your bones. Life doesn’t march forward—it spirals, undulates, tangles itself in a web of endless becoming.
Let us not resolve this year. Let us not bind ourselves tighter into the machinery of betterment. Let’s unravel. Let’s shred the calendar pages and turn back to the wild, to the ancient, animistic rhythms we’ve buried under the weight of centuries. Let’s weave a ritual—not for control but for surrender, not for improvement but for intimacy with the living, breathing world.
A Ritual to Unravel the Clock
This ritual is not for the faint of heart. It is for those who are willing to get their hands dirty, to kneel on the earth, to let themselves be unmade by it. It is not about tidying up your life. It is about letting go of the lie that your life needs tidying at all.
1. Gather the Frayed Threads
Find a handful of natural fibers—something raw, imperfect, alive with texture. Wool pulled from a sheep’s back. Twine spun from hemp. A strand of hair you’ve braided and unbraided too many times. These are your threads, the raw material of your year.
Hold them in your hands. Feel their frays and knots. Let them tell you the story of your last twelve months—the places where you unraveled, where you were pulled too tight, where you began to fray at the edges. Don’t rush this. The threads know what they want to say.
2. Go to the Wild
Take your bundle of threads outside. Not to a manicured park or a tidy garden, but to a place that still remembers itself—an overgrown patch of weeds, a frozen creek, the shadow of a tree that has outlived empires.
Kneel here. Press your hands into the earth or the snow or the bark of a tree. Feel the pulse beneath you, the slow heartbeat of a world that does not measure time in minutes but in migrations, in moon phases, in seasons that bloom and rot and bloom again.
3. Speak the Truth of the Year
Hold your threads one by one. For each thread, speak a truth about the year that has passed. Name the griefs you carried, the ecstasies that cracked you open, the failures that you buried like compost in your chest. Speak them out loud—not to be heard, but to be freed.
With each truth, offer a thread to the earth. Bury it in the soil. Let it catch on the branches. Lay it in the arms of a river if there is one. Give it back to the wild, where it will rot and feed something new.
4. Break the Line, Enter the Spiral
When your bundle is empty, sit in silence. Feel the emptiness of your hands. Stretch your arms wide and let your body soften into the moment's spiral. Imagine yourself not as a line moving forward but as a thread in an infinite web—woven into the breath of the trees, the underground highways of mycelium, and the unseen wings of moths navigating by moonlight.
Let the spiral take you. You don’t need to know where it leads.
5. Call in the Wild Year
Place your hands on the earth, the snow, the stone beneath you. Instead of resolving to fix yourself, call forth the wild, untamed qualities that are already growing inside you. Whisper them into the soil: ferocity, softness, curiosity, unbreakable joy. Name them like you’re naming old friends.
The earth will take these words. It will hold them. It will let them grow in their own time. You don’t need to force them. You are not the gardener here.
Embodied Reckoning: Let the Earth Remake You
When you stand, notice what has shifted. Where in your body do you feel the weight of the year still clinging? Where have you begun to loosen, to unravel, to root yourself back into the ground?
The earth is not asking for your perfection. It is asking for your presence. Your willingness to let it remake you—not as something better, but as something more alive.
Closing the Ritual: Unbound, Unbroken
Leave your threads behind. Leave your truths in the soil. You are not bound by the clock or the calendar. You are not a straight line that must always move forward. You are a spiral, a tangle, a wild thread woven into a web that has no beginning and no end.
So this year, let yourself unravel. Let yourself be messy, tangled, and undone. The forest floor is made of rot and chaos, and it is the richest place on earth.
What will you become when you stop trying to fix yourself? When you let the living world weave you back into its song?
The earth does not resolve to be better. Neither should you.
The spiral is waiting. Will you step in?
A few of my favorite things…
a curated selection of wonder and inspiration for when a moment arrives in which we need to be reminded to place both feet soulfully, full in, on this earthly plane of existence.
For the Heart…
Unravel
I will not walk the clock’s sharp edge,
feet bleeding on its brittle seconds.
I am tired of lines,
of counting, of breaking myself
into pieces small enough to fit inside
a calendar box.
I will not kneel at the altar of the clock.
Its tick is a cage,
its hands a noose tightening
around the throat of the wild.
Instead, I loosen.
Pull threads from my chest
Laid bare for the soil to take
tangled, frayed, salt-streaked,
grief that broke me open,
joy that slipped through my fingers,
failures I buried like seeds
forgetting to water.
Unraveled,
a thread pulled loose from the tyranny of straight lines,
spooling into the great web,
where the owl waits in the dark
and the mycelium whispers
beneath my feet,
I return to the forest floor,
where time is measured in decay.
The Earth will take it all—
the knots, the frays, the unfinished stories—
and weave me into their mycelial spiral,
where nothing is waste
She wants the mess of me:
the roots I’ve broken,
the wild seeds I’ve swallowed,
the grief that tastes of iron,
the joy that will not be caged.
Kneeling in her vast, dark hands,
I whisper my surrender.
Not to resolutions or betterment,
but to the spiral,
the one I was born from.
Here, there is no beginning, no end.
Only the circling,
the unmaking,
the becoming.
I will not measure myself in hours.
I will measure myself in wingspans,
in wolf howls,
in the green pulse of leaves I have yet to meet.
Let this year be a thread undone,
woven back into the web
where all my broken pieces
can breathe.
SMW, Jan 1, 2025
For the Ears…
a curated playlist that resonates with the themes of unraveling, connection to the wild, and stepping into the spiral of life. These pieces evoke liminality earthiness, and a sense of ritual:
Heilung – “Krigsgaldr”
A blend of ancient Nordic chants, throat singing, and percussion that feels like a portal to an older, untamed world. Perfect for invoking a sense of ritual and connection to ancestral rhythms.
Lisa Gerrard – “Sanvean”
Lisa Gerrard’s haunting, wordless vocals feel like a hymn to the sacred unknown, a lament and a call to the wild all at once.
Wardruna – “Helvegen”
Rooted in Norse tradition, this song is both a mourning and a celebration of life’s cyclical nature—a guide to the paths of death and rebirth.
Agnes Obel – “Fuel to Fire”
Ethereal and melancholic, this song feels like standing in the dark woods, listening to the echo of your own transformation.
Aukai – “Feather”
Minimalist and earthy, with layered acoustic textures, this instrumental piece feels like it’s woven from wind and shadow.
This Mortal Coil – “Song to the Siren”
A timeless, dreamlike ballad that captures longing, loss, and the oceanic pull of transformation.
Dead Can Dance – “The Host of Seraphim”
Monumental and otherworldly, this piece bridges the sacred and the wild, inviting you to step into the vastness of the spiral.
Joanna Newsom – “Emily”
Newsom’s poetic lyrics and intricate harp work evoke the cycles of nature and the intimate, tangled threads of human experience.
Sigur Rós – “Untitled #3 (Samskeyti)”
A slow, meditative unfolding of sound that feels like time stretching, unraveling, and weaving itself into something new.
For the Eyes…
Exploring the intersection of nature, ritual, animism, and somatics, here are several artworks and artists whose creations resonate deeply with these themes:
Tiana Traffas’ ‘Biophilia | Animism’ Series
Tiana Traffas explores the concept of animism by attributing sentience to various beings, including animals, plants, and the earth. Her work fosters a profound connection to nature, inviting viewers to engage with the living world in a meaningful way.
Alisi Telengut’s ‘The Fourfold’
Alisi Telengut’s animated film ‘The Fourfold’ intertwines art, animism, and eco-cosmologies, offering a visual narrative that reflects the interconnectedness of all life forms. Her work delves into botanical personhood and the spiritual dimensions of nature.
Paulina Olowska’s Integration of Folk Traditions
Paulina Olowska incorporates folk traditions and crafts into her art, promoting lesser-known Polish artists and reflecting the mystical and dark undertones of her environment. Her work often explores themes of femininity and the natural world.
A final word…
With potent and enduring gratitude for your attuning your altar with mine,
May this year find you standing at the threshold,
unafraid to step into the unknown,
where shadows hold their own light
and endings are only quiet beginnings.
May, like the ancient Yew, you be
grounded in the unseen,
your growth rising steadily
toward what is yet to be revealed.
May the winds of change stir your roots
without toppling your core.
May the ache of this transformation
become a song you hum to yourself in the dark.
And when you falter,
may the river teach you how to move forward,
not through strength, but through surrender,
finding the way in yielding.
May you remember always:
you are not alone.
The wind knows your name,
the earth holds your story,
and the stars keep time with your heart.
May each moment remind you:
you are part of something vast,
sacred, and whole.