December Outlook: The Wrapping up of the Shit

Wild year refuses to be tamed even to the bitter end

One of my favorite things to do, as I may have mentioned somewhere or other, is to incorrectly pronounce the word DENOUEMENT in a more phonetically American way. You know: dih-NOOOO-mint. I just love it. Dih-NOOOO-mint! The correct, French, pronunciation of the word is also fine, I guess, but I insist my way is truer to the spirit of the thing.

The wrapping up of the shit.

DihNOOOOmint!

So it is with December.

Sure, every fiber of my being went into this hoping for a quiet end to 2019 — to all this [gestures wildly]. I know not to expect such things, and I know next year is predicted to be no better and no less wild than this one, but I still was desperately hoping for a quick little holiday Christmas joy jolly respite.

That’s not exactly what we’re getting this month.

And after all, as that incorrigible, indomitable Trickster-voice deep within me kept insisting all along: it wouldn’t in any way be appropriate or proper for a year such as this to end with placid, uneventful shorelines. It would be disappointing, even to the most tired among us, unsatisfying to the soul, leaving us wondering what all of this has even been for if not to come toward some kind of…wrapping up of shit.

At least that’s what I’m gonna tell myself, to console myself, to convince myself that it’s cool that things won’t be chill and easy because they won’t be!

My relentless bitching aside, the outlook actually isn’t as bad as you might think — and despite my longings nonetheless more positive than I myself was expecting. It’s exciting and taxing and still relentlessly exhausting, but it’s not bad.

It’s a proper-ass dihNOOOOmint.

I’ve always found it unshakably bizarre when the results of my divinations match precisely the time of the year; to be specific to this case, it’s unshakably bizarre when the central hexagram for the month of December is the one that represents December and January, the Winter Solstice. It is always, of course, certainly within the realm of the reasonably possible but nonetheless coincidental enough that I’ve often suspected the sticks and the cards of messing with me. Don’t laugh — if they’re messing with me, they’re messing with you!

The image here is that of the turning point. The victory of the darkness is complete and now the light begins to grow again. The eventual victory of that light is now assured.

The winter solstice.

We arrive upon it battered and bruised, both our balance and our confidence taking the biggest hits, but we can still rally. You know it’s true. The time is here — the stagnant water is about to get all stirred up (yes, like the song) and scores are about to be settled with all the cold but precisely fair judgment and even punitive damages or sentences handed down from on high.

This is the ride. Don’t resist the stirring of the pot. When the time comes, don’t hold back. We’re all gonna stray a little bit from the path and from the goal and from what’s wholly right and proper a bit under the present pressure cooker conditions, but the key is to see this and right ourselves before going too far. If you’ve made mistakes, especially those that have caused undeniable injury, now is the time to acknowledge them. Amnesty is guaranteed.

The turn toward the good requires no strategy or scheming on our part. It’s a function, once again, of the changing phases of the cycle. The wheel moves on, this time to provide relief, to allow for those of like mind to come and join together wholly in the open, in harmony and without selfish motives. This hasn’t been possible for quite some time and now it is. This is a tremendous shift in our favor. Transformation is on now.

As ever, however, such times are not all plastic candy canes and fake mall snow or whatever the hell magic mistletoe is supposed to work in some ancient collective imagination. We ought also to prepare ourselves even in our moment of liberation, as we breathe just a bit freely, that we’re still going to be presented with dark and sorrowful chaos even as we are graced with a cosmic, sacred feminine transformational transcendent process bringing us in harmony with the earth itself. It’s not one or the other, my friends — however we might wish it were so. It’s both, all at once.

We can do it.

With all this almost as an epic, fantastical backdrop, we’ve got the promise of very significant — if not utterly necessary — union formation. The thing to look for is relationships that are open, sincere, complementary, and truly mutually beneficial.

And not to get all hierarchical here, but the indication here is very explicitly that the other piece that’s needed is a leader central to all of it. That leader needs to be great in spirit, consistency, and strength. Is that you? Then you gotta set about forming the thing — only you know what it is or what it looks like.

If it’s not you, that’s cool. Don’t force it. That’s the worst thing you can do. Instead, go find a thing, join it. Serve it, serve the others in it. We need this now. I’m not threatening anybody with apocalypse because I don’t believe in that shit, but I’m still saying this is what we need.

There’s a lot to be sorted through and a lot that still needs to be burned off. Things haven’t been comfortable and we shouldn’t expect them to be now. Whatever we can expect from this dihNOOOOmint, may we avoid the mistake of expecting comfort.

Yet, beneath all this batshit intelligent-design cacophony, there is a certain level of comfort to be found in the fact that — as we’ve also said a dozen times — water flows on and it flows together. So must it be for society, for us collectively. For any of this to work, we must be permitted our whole individual selves while knowing always ourselves to be inseparable from the whole.

If you’ve been a good and prudent and intentional gardener of your life this year, you’re harvesting a shitload of fruits and whatnot. If you’ve applied your will to the course of this year, it’s served you well and it’s still here at your disposal, still intact. And if we look the right way, perhaps at the right angle or with the right intensity, we can see or feel that sacred feminine flow behind all the universe gently propping us, gently whispering that something’s got our back.

We’ve made it this far. There’s definitely some comfort in all that.

No catastrophe. No peaceful warm beach. But it’s cool, it’s what is.

Enjoy a little luxury in these coming weeks, but don’t trust it. Expect a little touch of material success or gain, but know it’s gonna be fleeting. And watch out for spooky and unexpected trips through the underground, adventures in the wee hours and under the strangest of moons — especially around the strange eclipse moon we’ve got planned for Christmas Day.

Whatever 2019 was, it never quit and isn’t gonna. Have a good and safe dihNOOOOmint.