Dearest friends on the path,
With the New Year and the return of the light, we have an opportunity to renew our hope and embrace new beginnings. There is much to be done in this new year and together we are truly making a difference. I send blessings to all of you with prayers that you will find the guidance, grace, support, and resilience you require to wake up every day with gratitude, compassion (for yourself and others), and passion to make a better world.
Here is an inspiring essay from Michael Meade on New Year’s potential:
“The Threshold Of Change”
Pondering New Year’s Eve,
With Michael Meade
On a mythic level, New Year’s Eve can be seen as a collective rite of passage, a ritual intended to mark the end of the old year and the celebratory start of a new period. All of life has a chance to begin again, as a timeless moment brings a renewal of time and with it a return of life’s hidden potentials. People instinctively kiss each other in that moment; friends hold each other close and even strangers hug one another as if to embrace the mystery of renewal and catch the spark of life beginning again.
As the first month of the New Year, January takes its name from Janus, the old Roman god of doorways and thresholds, who ruled over all transitions. Ancient depictions show Janus with two faces looking in opposite directions, representing past and future, the old and the new. Mythically, Janus was connected to chaos as well as renewal. The backward glance of the god looks all the way back to the primal chaos that existed before the formation of the world. Thus, in order for time to start over and a new year to begin, chaos has to be present.
To this day, New Year’s Eve can bring disorder and unruliness as wild parties, loud music and an abundance of spirits reflect the old idea that chaos must reign before any renewal can occur. Yet, besides the presence of chaos, a return to the beginning brings with it a renewal of all the potentials of life. Not simply the notion of a fresh start; but the deeper sense that what begins in chaos can lead to a greater sense of creativity and even a deeper sense of wisdom.
There is no doubt that we live in chaotic and troubling times. The radical effects of climate change evidence that; the toxic levels of partisan politics and the rise of authoritarian figures also say that. The increase of bigotry, misogyny and self-serving ideologies all bespeak a chaos that has been loosed upon the world. Yet, amidst the chaos and collapse of one period, the next shape of life takes form. It does so, not after all the chaos is over; but as at New Year’s Eve, in the midst of it all.
The world renews itself all the time in the secrecy of forests, in the inner mysteries of quantum exchanges; but also in the hearts of those who commit fully to life. If people can remain open-minded and open hearted, whether it is the dark of the year or the darkest time of one’s life, renewal and recreation remain a possibility.
Consciously or unconsciously, we stand on the threshold of time turning over and can assist the world to begin again and thereby tap the unseen potentials of life and love and the magic of change.
May the threshold of the New Year open before you in ways that reveal the hidden potentials of life and increasing ways to live in truth and contribute beauty and meaning to the world.