A Community-Led Series to Find One’s Center in the New Year
About Threshold: From 12/27 - 01/04 you will receive a daily piece of writing, art or a practice from a trusted esoteric practitioner. Our intention is to help reflect on the year they have had, and plant seeds of intention in 2025. Each of these practitioners is someone who I respect and admire, and is also part of the guest faculty for Emanate: Business School for Mystics.
Dear Keeper of the Threshold,
Welcome to the first day of our 9 Days of Ritual.
2025 is a year 9 in numerology, and a Hermit year in the Tarot, which corresponds with the themes of Integrity and Wisdom according to numerologist Dan Millman.
“This ninth year is a year of completion, of letting go, of quiet reflection that leads to wisdom—a time of looking backward and understanding that all cycles end, then begin again. Attachment never avails here, for all things pass…”
- The Life You Were Born to Live by Dan Millman
Of the Hermit archetype, Rachel Pollack wrote:
“[T]he Hermit signifies the idea that only by withdrawing from the outer world can we awaken the inner self.”
In literature and ancient myth, the Hermit is an alternative to the church, a giver of shelter to weary travelers, and a source of wisdom to heroes on their quest.
Astrologically, the new year is marked by a shift in four outer planets, a confluence of activity that signifies new eras and collective change.
When you put these symbolic messages together, it becomes clear that 2025 is a time to engage in practices that help us find our center; and for many of us, our rituals are what bring us to this place.
Spells and energy work hinge on the foundational belief that everything is made of energy. This concept is at the core of physics on the quantum scale. Foundational and emerging theories from quantum physics often converge with the principles found at the heart of many Indigenous mythologies, most notably the notions that:
1. everything is alive,
2. many planes exist, and
3. we are all connected.
A ritual is an act done with intention, and its power comes from the clarity of our intention and the humility and willingness to acknowledge that on some level, we are always interacting with something much greater than us. Because we are not separate islands, when we create intentional rituals, we call upon that which we are connected to, including the many levels of ourselves - those parts of us that live on vaster planes. When we define our intentions, we create a direction for all these energies to come into coherence in the service of our highest good and the highest good of all those connected to us.
“The Hermit is a beacon of clarity that can only come through renouncing distractions and embracing introspection and spiritual practice. They invite us to ask: What matters most to me? What am I willing to give up to get closer to it? How can I look inward for clarity, and outward for meaning and connection?”
To me, this time feels increasingly tender: not only because of the ongoing senseless violence that has become all too familiar in our modern age, but because we are being asked to put down that which prevents us from embracing the gift of our sensitivity - because it is our sensitivity that helps us identify the truth. We are inside out, both in the chrysalis and in the world. If we can't predict what will happen outside of us, can we become more masterful at responding instead of reacting?
In order to find (and become) the eye in the many-eyed storms that often come with transformation, we must build a tolerance for uncertainty, a capacity for feeling, and the willingness to learn the skill of digesting our own experiences before we act.
This is no small feat, and yet it is also quiet work. There may be no parade when you intentionally choose not to take the bait when someone tries to pick a fight with you over something inconsequential, but the feeling of response-ability creates integrity, and integrity creates an internal state of coherence akin to a quiet celebration. The energy of integrity builds momentum- not the kind of momentum that propels you forward, but a deeper kind of momentum that helps you become the change you want to see. This kind of integrity asks us to accept our power with humility and invites us to be sites of generosity, points in time and space in which the energy of big emotions is transformed rather than simply transferred to another.
Sensitivity, while beautiful, is often spoken about within a narrative of powerlessness, as if the ability to empathize with others makes life less tolerable, and options less plentiful. But this read on sensitivity is yet another branch of the good/bad plot line humanity must put down if we want to start a new collective story. The more useful lens: to be sensitive is to see the many stories and layers available in a single moment, and to use that sight to discern when it is time to take action, take pause, or ask for more information.
In times of great change, our ability to sit with the unknown before jumping to conclusions gives us more opportunity to find peace, resolution, or new action pathways we didn't see before.
Today's Threshold Ritual:
You will need:
One sheet of paper,
something to write or draw with,
a quiet place to sit and imagine for a few minutes.
For the next 24 hours, allow yourself to notice when you are creating stories in your head. When you are in line at the grocery store, when you are talking to a loved one by text, or sitting in traffic, notice when you are in your body feeling a feeling versus in your mind creating a story.
These stories often come up when:
1) our needs aren't taken care of, (i.e. we are tired, hungry, in a rush, or disconnected.)
2) our emotions are making us uncomfortable and we want to explain them away
3) we are experiencing a true injustice, and we don't know how to accept what is happening and/or don't feel resourced to take action in a meaningful way
4) life presents us with conflicting stories, and the uncertainty is so uncomfortable that we would rather create a story than sit with the fact that we don't know.
Whenever you feel a very strong emotional charge, take at least three deep breaths, and feel into your belly as you focus on the image of being in a chrysalis in your exhale, and being connected to everything in existence by golden threads from one heart to another on your inhale.
*Alternatively, you can think of something that has had a strong emotional charge recently, and work with this for this exercise.
Breathe with the image of the chrysalis & the golden threads until you feel the charge in your body shift in some way.
When you feel the charge has shifted, feel the sensations in the center of your heart. Imagine the center of your heart has a center, and that center has a center. And that center has a center.
And when you are in the center of the center, let one word, image, or color come up as a message from your wise, courageous center.
On a piece of paper, draw a large heart, and inside that heart, draw another heart, and inside that heart draw another heart, and in the center heart, draw or write whatever message you received.
Put this in a visible place over the next 9-days. Work with this exercise or message anytime you want to connect with your center.
Thank the little light in your heart for being a lantern to you in these great times of change.
If you'd like to learn a little more about what I do, here is a window into my multiverse.
Xenia Marie Ross Viray (she/they) is an Imagination Healer, Frequency Artist, and creativity catalyst with a focus on innovative learning containers and writing. Xenia is the founder of Myths of Creation, a container for experiments at the intersection of creativity, spirituality, and meaning-making. Xenia's work reconnects communities, ideas, and art forms that are traditionally siloed to enrich the pool of imaginal possibility. Her offerings are designed to help compassionate creatives anchor their natural genius into form and include Imaginal Temple creative mystical mentorship, the Garden of the Imaginal Substack, and an evolving cornucopia of courses, workshops, and 1:1 sessions. Right now, I am preparing to open the doors to Emanate: A business school for mystics. Get on the list to see the curriculum and guest faculty atthis link.
