How Zozobra, the Original Burning Man, Became Santa Fe’s ‘New Year’ Tradition

For Nearly 100 Years, the City Has Cleared the Emotional Air by Lighting a 50-Foot Effigy on Fire

Grievances, everyday annoyances, unexpected sorrows. A loved one leaves by choice or by a visit from the Grim Reaper. A financial burden turns life upside down. Even a flat tire at the wrong time can send someone over the emotional edge. It’s no wonder we annually feel an urgent need to make New Year’s resolutions, hoping for better outcomes.

What if there were a ritual for releasing the woes, anxieties, and grief that plague us despite our best intentions? Santa Fe, New Mexico, “the City Different,” has such a tradition. Known …

At Last! 2016 Is in the Past

But Before We Reach Out for Something New—a Poem to Bid the Past 12 Months Adieu

You’re game for the year ’17, so you say,
It’s time that the drear of ’16 went away.
Let’s keep the murk past, back where it belongs,
Stop dwelling on …

2015 Will Be the Year of the Throwback

From the Bushes and the Clintons to the Telephone, the Old Is New Again

My friend Greg long ago convinced me that instead of a laundry list of resolutions, what we really need every new year is just one catch-all aspirational slogan, more likely …