I’m writing this as a final batch of Rum & Raisin truffles are setting in the fridge & there’s a lot of washing up to do from a busy last day of 2025.
Perhaps you relish New Year celebrations, or you may find it overwhelming. Or a bit of both…
If it’s been a tough year, you might be exhausted and hoping for a better 2026, with the optimism of new beginnings.
2025 has been a long year, with a lot going on for those close to me, and I’ve been looking after some particularly heartbreaking services in my work as a Funeral Celebrant.
It’s not an easy profession, supporting families at the worst time in their lives, but it’s a privilege to listen to the life stories of loved ones, and to be of service. Hopefully I can bring some comfort and honour their love.
I heard the phrase ‘to look with kind eyes’, from Adam Brody’s character in the Netflix TV show Nobody Wants This. it’s a wise way to view the world with a generous heart. I urge you to ‘look with kind eyes’ at yourself as you assess your year, to be proud of how you’ve navigated the difficult challenges alongside the happy times.
I received beautiful flowers from a family to thank me for two services I took for them recently. They wrote such tender words on the card and saw me ‘with kind eyes’ in the midst of their grief. The flowers bring winter colour to my desk, and I hope the New Year brings them peace and strength.
Life is full of many big emotions, and we try to hold space for them all. As a Celebrant I get to tell real life Love Stories – beautiful, messy and sometimes complicated, just like life.
Like most of us, I’m doing my best, I haven’t got everything figured out, but I’m grateful to be here and a part of this messy, complicated and beautiful life stuff!
I stumbled on some words from Rilke, about listening, which I’ll share below. (Apologies but I’ve forgotten who initially shared them.) However you approach the New Year, take a moment to listen. Perhaps listen to those closest to you, to hear what is and isn’t being said? Maybe listen to the symphony of traffic noise or notice morning birdsong, as you put the bins out.
Can you also take five minutes with a cuppa, and listen to yourself? Find that still, quiet spot deep inside, that you might not have noticed lately. What do you really want more or less of in your life? Beyond what advertisers claim you should desire for a New Year, what does your heart truly crave?
It might be more quiet time to just drink tea, or read or draw, or perhaps you need more dancing in the kitchen, or karaoke in the shower. Maybe you yearn for a good cry in the bath, after all the difficult things you’ve navigated this year?
Whatever it is you wish for, take a few moments to write it down and see where the pen leads you. Be curious, it may surprise you, and I hope you feel nourished by listening to yourself. Perhaps it will be the beginning of identifying something you’d like to change. We could call this ‘listening with kind ears!’
Maybe in that quiet time you’ll think of a new tradition for 2026, to tell family and friends how much you appreciate them and what you love about them.
Thinking of ‘kind ears’, here’s the Rilke words for you, as the New Year approaches:
“…Now I can hear the tree.
Then all went silent. But even in the silence
was signal, beginning, change.
Out of the stillness of the unbound forest,
animals came forth from dens and nests.
And it was not fear or cunning
that made them be so quiet,
but the desire to listen.”
From Sonnets to Orpheus, by Rilke.
Can you find that instinctive desire to listen to the world around you, and to yourself?
I’m currently hearing early fireworks announcing 2026, so I’ll wish you the best for the New Year, and may we meet it with ‘kind eyes and ears’ for each other.
Time to wash up now, and see if I can hear the bubbles popping above the fireworks…
