Happy New Year. We've entered the second decade of the 21st century. Weird, eh? Time is arbitrary, and yet it helps us mark the passage of our lives. I hesitate to use the popular phrase "journey of our lives"… especially at this time of year, because it encourages us to collect our baggage and venture there and away from here. We see looming before us in the messages of new year's resolutions: "What are you going to do with your life?" "What changes do you need to make?" "Come, now, its time for resolutions: its time to improve and change, release bad habits, become better than you have been."
But what needs to happen now, in this time of inner growth, lower light and fields of stillness, is the welcome of presence, the return to soul's knowing, the settling in to the nurturing darkness.
New year's resolutions make a kind of sense, because beginnings do offer opportunities, and our hopes and longings do crave recognition. But claiming new ways of being or changing course are also counter-intuitive, really, for this time… if we go deeper into our nature-bound selves and respond to the signals and energies of these days of rest, renewal and regeneration.
Return again, return again, return to the home of your soul, return to the home of your soul…
(Jewish call during Rosh Hashannah—new year in autumn)
It is believed, in earth-centered traditions, that during the least productive time in nature's cycle, the forces that keep habits in place reach their weakest point, giving the most accessible opening to our ability to reprogram the mind. This is a time, in our natural cycle of days, when we are at the height of our spirit's receptivity to systemic change, to tapping into consciousness, to nurturing ground for our naturally abundant, interdependent being to gain strength and focus. The mind leads our way in this world and often distracts us from intuitive knowing. At this time we can will the mind fallow, lie dormant, so that we can come to a deeper sense of things.
In Chinese philosophy, winter is considered the resting time, a time when energy is renewing itself, when movement is at its beginning. Thus, everything must be treated tenderly, with the understanding that what is at its beginning takes time to build up strength and come to its fullness.
So instead of making resolutions to change ourselves, we can make affirmations of what we want to grow from within. Our resolutions can be an embrace of what we want to manifest in our being. They can be an attitude shift, treated tenderly, with humility and perseverance, and a willingness not to know the outcome.
Our collective instinct for making resolutions and ringing out the old to welcome the new connects with our natural wisdom of regeneration. But it is the approach that we need to pay attention to. The approach calls far more for surrender and faith than for anticipation and control. This is not a time for conclusions, it is a time for marshalling resources, for restoring strength, for opening to potential… to paraphrase an I-Ching reading, the task is to accept potential in its totality as openly as earth accepts water.1
This can be a hard time—dwelling within the unknown. The lack of light and the seemingly dormant life can lead us into doubt of potential and the need to see results. But what this time calls for is trust and presence. It is a time to take on the responsibility of our own growth, of our health, of our ways and walking: a time to make choices that strengthen our resolve toward well being and effective, naturally abundant living, which we know is present, even though we cannot see it.
So we can still make resolutions to quit smoking or diet or exercise, but it would help us if these choices are made as gestures toward the larger love and honor of our selves and the potential therein. Too often we make resolutions as a kind of aggression against ourselves—a battle against the notion that we are not good enough or that our lives are not working because of this wrong choice or that defective character trait.
The opportunity of this time, however, is to understand that wholeness is possible, that our beauty is evident and that our way in the world can flow with the help of the natural wisdom that dwells beneath the surface, beyond our seeing—emerging when we are humble and aware, when we are ready to participate in life rather than force ourselves upon life. It is a time to be open to who and what we are, rather than judge who we should be.
There is a story about the Hasidic master, Rabbi Zusya. When Rabbi Zusya was near his death, his students gathered round him. One timidly asked the Rabbi if he were afraid to die. "I am most afraid of what they will ask me when I get to heaven," he answered. "What will they ask you?" the disciples urged. "They will not ask me, 'Zusya, why were you not like Moses?' They will ask me, 'Zusya, why were you not Zusya?'"2
To be okay with who we are takes a great deal of faith and discipline of mind. And who we are is not what we do: it is the base from which we make our choices, it is the ground from which we move and have our being. Who we are is holy—what we make of it is our freedom. This ground, known by each of us, is part of the whole of existence. This is the place, in Christian terms, of God's image. This is the place, In Unitarian Universalist terms of inherent worth and dignity. We have the freedom, we have the responsibility to manifest our being.
The faith that is involved in our opening to potential, is a faith, not only in our own connection with the larger Being—the full and universal knowing—but also a faith in shared being. A faith in our presence in the mix of all things.
This does not deny the fact that we are each unique, with a specific contribution to make. Nor does it take away from our power of discovery or breaking new ground. All these things are simply more available to us, more authentic within us, when we pay attention to the alchemy of our souls, when we flow with the rhythm of rest, regeneration and transformation.
In ways little and large this happens every day of our lives, but there are cycles that our souls will naturally take if we honor that we are nature: if we honor, as Eckhart Tolle has said that "life lives us." We are the dance, along with the grass and the trees, the clouds and the wind, the wolves and the butterflies, the sun and moon… we are the dance, and the universe holds us in its embrace. It is a wisdom, a realization, that is ever available to each of us when we release our need to control it.
Lao Tzu wrote in the Tao Te Ching: "Open yourself to the Tao, then trust your natural responses; and everything will fall into place."3
If we can rely on our presence in a vast network of being, knowing we are related, knowing we belong, then we can forego the rejection of self and enter into the responsibility of fully emerging. This responsibility is not only for our own health, it is for the health of our being together. If we pretend to be who we are not, or discard our selves as not good enough, then we will not be able to manifest the beauty of our being and we will fail to recognize the depth of life's worth.
A modern parable: A woman dies before her time. She comes to the pearly gates and is told that there was a mix-up, that, indeed, she has 20 more years to live. She is immediately sent back and is miraculously revived. She gets right to work: plastic surgery, botox, hair dye and caps on her teeth. Ready to take on the world as the new Polly, she crosses the street and gets hit by a bus. "I thought I had 19 more years," she protests when reaching the gate. "Well, Polly… we didn't recognize you."
Think of all the energy we spend on trying to be who we are not, or who we judge we should be. Think of all the efforts we make to avoid a true look in the mirror or an honest assessment of our ways of being. Ironically, it is honesty, a true embrace of self, that opens us to the love of and in life. We are helped when we let ourselves be, when we accept our lives as they are.
This is not a passive time, but a time of reception. It is not a low energy time, but a time of recharging. This is not a hesitant time, but a time of expansion. Things still happen, life still offers its surprises, but in the winter of our natural ways, we learn the art of presence, when each encounter feeds our consciousness, and provides a way of knowing and nurturing our true lives.
I heard a story of a woman who was struggling with chemo-therapy. She had always thought of herself as brave, strong and self reliant. But the chemo was breaking her spirit and made her ever more afraid of the next moment. On one visit to the cancer ward she broke down and cried and screamed and protested. She could not do another round. A child, about ten years old, approached her, bald from her own chemo. She lifted up her shirt and said "you should have gotten one of these." It was a plastic tube that had been surgically placed near her stomach for the treatments she had to endure. "You can do it. You can make it through" the child said, with no real ceremony or self-pity, just with honesty and a natural love that flows from that place.
We often try to complicate things, to make them more than they actually are and miss the essence within. We try and make things what our life would make them instead of seeing the connection with all of life. There are countless bold statements that never get press and a myriad of misguided statements that command all our attention.
In this time of regrouping, open yourselves to the knowledge of peace and unity and let yourselves come into fullness of being.
I would like to share portions of a poem by Celeste Snowber:
Remember each day is a holy day, a place to recall presence.
No one day is more special than the other, but you can breathe into each day differently.
Remember the simple things—a deep breath into all your cells, the gorgeous limb of one branch, a place of connection between a friend or a stranger.
The art of life comes to you everyday, unfolding from its skin and asks for a greeting. Welcome the unexpected and have compassion on the expected…
May the inside of your body be a zen garden.
Remember beauty walks before you, now just walk.
Incremental steps, even backward steps towards wonder.
Know you will not get everything done, said, written, wrapped, made, or thought of.
It is all about cracks of opening into heart, body, mind, soul.
Make peace with the cracks and the interruptions, for they are echoes of the divine.
Greet the ordinary with fresh eyes, here is the fragrance of a day set apart.
Know you are held in a wider embrace.
Let the natural world hold you and give in to the weather.
Here you are called back to release.
Sip small beginnings of calling yourself and those around you to the juice of joy.
And drink from your own deep well… 4
In the words of Renee Locke:
Pray for peace, plant a tree, and sing more joyful songs.
Have a great week…
and wondrous year.
Amen.
Copyright © 2010 Lisa Ward. All Rights Reserved.