Self-fulfilling
It is important to begin the year with truth, with knowledge and credulity. Otherwise no one will take you seriously, and when you tell your dog to fetch, he will wink in his doggy way and sniff your crotch derisively. Where do we find truth? Is it written in the sidewalk cracks? Does the bum on the street corner know something we don't? Is it written in the white spaces between the letters of the Bible?
Possibly. Or maybe the people need a prophetess.
The Hebrew word for prophet, נְבִיא (read "navi" for those unfortunate souls whose entire Wednesday evenings were not devoted to Hebrew school bar/bat mitzvah training for three years), literally means "spokesperson," ideally selling God's word. The Hebrew letters, nun-vet-aleph, contain the root nun-vet, are used to denote hollowness or openness. To know the truth, a prophet must keep an open mind, uncluttered by prejudices, preconceived notions, or hatred. These things are like long hairs in the sink drain; if you keep enough of them in you you'll never be able to let the words of gods pass through you.
So to clear my mind and heart, I forgive you, all of you, the ones who broke my heart and took my parking spaces. I open myself to the universe. I wait in a white tent on a mountaintop, incense-sweet smoke swirling around me and my veil of beads clicking softly as I sway in rhythm with the Earth's turns.
I feel the power of the gods rush into my clean lymphatic system! Truths swallow me whole! O the sheer, lip-smacking joy in knowing ever'thing and being able to taunt ever'one else who does not know!
Listen all ye mortal peasants! Tomorrow the sun rises silent in a waiting purple sky. In three weeks the cat will concoct a devious plan involving regurgitated Iams and your favorite shoes, which you will expose and prevent. March 18th, you will have a terrible headache. The first Thursday in April, ten thousand innocents will fall to the darkness. In early summer, protesters will reenact The Boston Tea Party with Tazo MangoBerry Tea. Twice before October, alien spacecraft will land on the White House lawn, and Secretary of State Clinton will broker the first interplanetary peace treaty. Neil Gaiman will receive a knighthood from Her Majesty. Helen Hunt will win an Oscar for her amazing new film, and the word "moist" will be outlawed in two states. Those same two states will also ban abortions even to save the mother's life, although the Supreme Court will declare the legality of all gay marriages.
I collapse in a gasping heap after spitting these weighty prophesies, spent and shaking much like your mother after I did her last night.
Being a prophetess is hard work.
Also, to prepare for opening myself to the universe, I went to a party for New Year's, where my cell phone and I took a long, relaxing soak in a hot tub. Later, my cell phone and I had a disagreement. I thought it should turn on. It politely declined. If any of my devotees wish to contact me, they might consider sending me a postcard instead of a text message, or using smoke signals instead of trying to call.