The New Year is traditionally pictured as a baby, a fresh new being of unlimited potential. Why not clasp that bundle of possibilities to your heart with joy? The year will bring what it brings. Might as well kiss this moment of transition on its chubby cheeks.
How will you welcome the New Year with love?
Fireworks went off periodically last night and caused a cacophony at midnight, terrifying my dog. She’s always been a bit uneasy about fireworks, but never this bad. Maybe it’s because my other, much calmer dog had died and was hence unable to reassure her that they weren’t an active threat. Maybe it was for a different reason altogether. At any rate, she was extremely stressed.
Thus, my sister and I stayed up to help her. We cuddled with her. When she was too restless to lay on the bed, my sister sat on the floor so that my dog could sit on her lap. She’s a big dog, but loves to sit on laps and usually calms down immediately when she does. The magic of the lap wasn’t enough ion its own; still, it helped. I also fed her treat after treat after treat. While the fireworks were sporadic, the treats were as well, and she had to work for them. When the fireworks really started to go off, I fed her treats continuously, literally giving her another treat as soon as she had swallowed one. Probably this one night wasn’t enough to transform the association with the noise with positive emotions rather than terror. That said, the classic counter-conditioning probably did keep her from becoming further traumatized. Maybe I’ll look for recordings of fireworks so I can desensitize her in a more controlled fashion, but that will have to wait. Re-exposing her now would send her right back over her threshold.
All this to say: while I don’t know how to fully embrace life, I did show love to my dog so that she could start the new year in a more positive fashion.
We usually have a Fire Communion at our UU fellowship at about the time of the New Year. This year, we used the time during the service to (1) on a small paper write down something which we regretted or disliked or had trouble with during 2014; these were collected and privately put into a receptacle for burning (outside!) and then (2) given another piece of paper on which to make a statement about something we intended to be hopeful about in 2015. These were shuffled and drawn randomly and read to the group; it was inspiring to hear what members of our fellowship aspire to during the coming year.