Inter-Cultural Rituals for World Citizenship

Heidi Muijen – Holy Days December 2025

HAPPY NEW YEAR INVITATIONAL POEM 

We had a great start together in Utrecht on a Friday afternoon medio December:
A brainstorm on our 2026 theme ‘Inter-Cultural Rituals for World Citizenship’
sitting around the playful dialogue tablecloth such a fine conversation as I remember!

To start the year, sharing with wit
our dreams and wishes, to overcome the winter dip….
Wouldn’t it be an inviting first Inter-Cultural Ritual to start with this year?
On a Friday afternoon early January to go with the flow of our ideas, let’s hear!

So, when coming together, same place and same time, please bring some tapas
Typical of your culture, together with your personal story about it, to share
Like we were sitting around the fire…. starting to remember when and where…

The animal that came to me in the third round is the Mermaid:
A creature both living in the sea – element of emotions and soul – offering her aid,
as well as in the human world; transcending the borders which are normally closed:

swimming from ancient times through stories of all cultures long before technology arose,
that is generating new kinds of borders between people: techneuten en nitwits, digibeten en geleerden…
why on earth building burocratic walls between humans, as staatsburgers, staatlozen, statushouders en (on-)gedocumenteerden…?

Let’s come together, meeting as Utrecht Intercultural Quest ― een ontmoeting van mens tot mens, over de grens ― crossing boarders, walls, bridges en cyber space systems…
…. to provoke a cosmopolitan spirit, as expressed in the Happy New Year / January contribution of Alexander Fontanilla Ballesteros of our QfWf Soul Circle:

The Art of Living Together – De Gulden Snede