If midnight tonight is the beginning of your new year*, you may want to ask yourself three questions in relation to last year.  They are the questions that healers of a Central Oregon Native American tribe ask their patients before beginning medicine work.  The healers believe that the answers a new patient give to the questions tell them how deep the illness, injury or damage lies.

1.  When was the last time you danced?

2.  When was the last time you sang?

3.  When was the last time you told your story?

*Those of us who celebrate the beginning of a new year at a different time will also find these questions illuminating.  (Thanks to JK for the information.)

Here, from Tom Waits, is a little Basement Medicine for all our new years:

Got to get behind the Mule In the morning and plow

Got to get behind the Mule

In the morning and plow

Got to get behind the Mule

In the morning and plow

Got to get behind the Mule

In the morning and plow