New Year 2022
/Happy New Year!
We hope it will be a happy one, just as we have hoped every year since time immemorial. New Year’s celebrations are always filled with high hopes.
I write “time immemorial,” but we’ve only been celebrating the “new year” since Babylonian times, about 4,000 years ago. To us, as tiny humans, that seems like time immemorial, but you could ask the dinosaurs from millions of years ago and I don’t think they’d have much to say about the new year. But, I digress.
Back to our celebrations. Do you have some new year’s resolutions to mark this one-year journey around the sun? Read more books? Walk in nature on a regular basis? Reach out to friends and family more often?
As we clink our glasses, our celebratory cocktail has a touch of bitters in it, doesn’t it? It reminds us of all that was regretted, lost, or mourned in the past year.
The Virus And 2022
Will 2022 be the year that COVID begins to fade away? Everyone hopes so. When will the day come that the virus no longer dominates our news, activities and movement? It does cause one to pause and wonder whether we should be jet-setting all over the planet after all.
Perhaps we were never designed for that. Could it be that taking the slow-boat is a more natural way to move on this planet? Maybe a slower, more natural rhythm is what is ingrained in our DNA.
At The Portal Of Time
Time. We measure it, count it, divide it, and add it up. Sometimes we have too much, other times, too little. We cling to the past, or fret about the future. We think we know what time is. As if it were tangible.
In fact, time mostly exists in our minds, entangled in our thoughts.
There’s nothing wrong with the acknowledgment of the changing seasons and picking out dates that we celebrate on our man-made calendars. On the New Year, we celebrate a point that we call “last year” and rejoice at a point that we call “next year.” We might want to keep in our awareness that it’s all just one big flow of energy.
We’re always standing at a portal of time. In every minute we stand in the center of the present moment of consciousness and yet, the weight of our human lives often dims this realization.
Still, we sense it. We feel it. We almost see it. Just out of view, at the corner of our sight, it reminds us to look closer. Perhaps this year we will. This year, we won’t just stand in the gateway, we’ll step through to the other side.
Wherever You Go
Wherever you go, there you are. You start to realize that more deeply with each passing year.
In this manner, we share the world of the spider – wherever we go, we spin our own web. Whether our web is humble or glittering with jewels, it’s still created with our fantasies, illusions and deceptions.
Sure, we might change some different ornaments on our web depending on our location. A French croissant, a German beer, an American hamburger (webs are, after all, all about catching food), but it is still a web of our own making with all the sticky traps of the unawakened mind.
Changing the decorations on our web will not change the web itself. Once we recognize this self-made construction surrounding us, it helps us to break free. Our awareness expands and we become more clear about our reactions and conditioning. We still have a web, we need one to live, but it no longer defines us, limits us. It’s only a part of being on this planet, not the core of who we are.
New Year Wish
This last year, we didn’t publish many blog posts. Words seemed limiting, inadequate. However, words help us to communicate, so maybe we’ll talk a bit more in the year to come.
For now, as we usher in 2022, a heartfelt wish is captured in this illustration by Pamela Zagarenski.
“My wish for you... a holiday, a winter, a year, a life full of joy & peace.”
Let’s also add, may it be a year full of good health – with healing on all levels.
Happy New Year 2022.
