Sunday, December 30th, 2007
Here it comes…a new wind…again and again. We have a new chance with each breath, and each rising moment, but only on rare and special occasion do we really realize it. We grasp truly and fully the moment and all its potential for complete renewal and rebirth, and it is a miracle. A miracle that is always waiting at our fingertips, and yet sometimes seems so very far away. The more years that pass, for many, the harder it is. “Just wait until you are my age…it is so much harder to start over…”
And as children we were like goldfish, or like dogs…each arriving moment a new adventure. Nothing but potential, interrupted only by the impositions of the world around us, slowly creeping into the way we saw ourselves and everything else. But no matter what age you are, how hardened or soft you are, there is a place in each of us that is totally untouched…by time or pain. A place that knows everything about any rebirth we could ever want, and is untainted by the past or impressions of the future.
I have met twenty-year-olds who are afraid of change and new beginnings, and sixty-year-olds who are willing to drop everything and step entirely into the unknown. The soul is the deciding force, and it is braver than our fears, and more powerful than anything we’ve been told. You have to really know who you are in order to not be swayed by who others say you are…your mothers, sisters, friends, brothers, associates, billboards, the public…anybody else. The people who have known us for a lifetime, and those who are just taking a first glimpse or will never even see our face. Nobody can decide who we are but ourselves.
Identities are comfortable…and sometimes even great fun, but too often we grow into them and around them and soon we think we would die if we detached because our roots are wound so intricately through them. We think we are them…we think we would become nothing without them. Our statuesque forms would dissolve into sand and dust and be carried away on the wind. Oh, but the freedom of being nothing…and riding the wind. Stone becomes heavy, and one form eventually can’t do justice to the thriving, writhing, ever-changing heart of our being.
We may be afraid that the form we have in our lives…the structure, is what keeps us from spilling out into everything and losing all we love to utter dilution…but what it opens to us is the oxygen for the spark of new life to ignite. We know when we are avoiding this destiny because nothing will seem to take light in our lives anymore, no matter how much work we put into it. What is dampening our light might be the place we live, or the house or space we reside in…it might be the job we are holding or the company we are keeping. It might be a relationship or a marriage. It might be family we are over-responsible for or friends who no longer reflect us. It might be the activities or groups we are a part of, or even a system of belief or label that doesn’t fit us anymore. When we identify and free up these energy-investments, new life force refreshes within us and creates bounty, health, and creative power to be released in our bodies and experiences. We will start to see ourselves, and our lives, differently.
When we have felt stuck in our routines or circumstances, the world becomes a well-walked path through barren-seeming fields under a grey sky. Day follows day and little things get us by…the color has slowly drained out of so many things by then. At those times the ground feels hard and unyielding. Looking down we may find only one reason for hope…a fistful of seeds clenched in one hand. For the seeds are always there when we are ready to seek them. They won’t feed us yet, and they won’t give us the color or vitality right away that we are yearning for…but they will give us one thing: promise. Just feeling them and putting them into the ground…even only with a half-hearted scatter, will begin something new we can wake up in the morning to watch for. This is the work. The only spiritual work I know…to begin to believe in oneself and take steps of courage toward flight on the wings of our everyday lives. My spirituality lives as much under the touch of my fingers as it does in the other realms…for they are one…like siblings separated at birth but never really parted.
For even as we watch and wait for the seeds to make something green, and to grow into something wild and wonderful, we are trusting the blossom. We are believing that no matter how things look along the way through the growth process, it can all be redeemed by the final revelation that waits in the heart of the flowering. And we cannot know this revelation in the days before, we can only trust. It is hard to build a house on trust. Most people prefer hard ground…even the fruitless kind. But a house built on trust can never fall down. It will never crumble until we are ready to level it and start over again. It is like walking on water, or across hot coals. There are no sure promises in this life, so we might as well attempt to trust the ones that float by us like mirrored bubbles, weightless leaves, ethereal petals, feathery snowflakes, dreamlike spores. They carry a secret strength for those who have reasonless faith.
You, beautiful soul, can be anything you want to be. You can decide what you want to be called, what you want to do, who you want to know, what you want to wear and what you are not. Be bold. Why not? This life is short and what matters more than being all that you are? Everything that really matters in your life will organize around you. You are the central sun and you are being asked to trust your own gravity. Otherwise you forget yourself and are drawn to the gravity of something else to revolve around. We have to become the center of our own universe if we are going to become everything. And we have to be fully ourselves before we can lose ourselves freely in the bliss of oneness. This is what it is to contain continuity…the great eternal body or enlightenment. It is not to deny who we are, but to find out who we really are.
I have seen the end. I know it is like the center of a rose. I know it only holds new life…and the kind of beauty that makes you cry with the movement of your heart. Don’t ask me how I know. I cannot tell you. It cannot be told. You know too. In a way you can’t describe either, and in a way that you often may doubt or ignore…but it is there.
When you think about your new year, consider freedom. Ask yourself how free you could possibly feel this year and for the rest of this life. Consider trust, and how your trust in the universe could be renewed. And contemplate, if you will, how to love yourself more…and more…and more. Decide who you would like to be, who you were before you were told otherwise…or have never had the chance to be, or have yet to discover…and then give yourself permission to become it. Let it be an experiment more than a commitment…a new playground when the rest of the world is telling you to get serious and bear down. Get back up on the swings and kick your legs until you think you have definitely hit another atmosphere and are either going to crash and fall or fly. Slide down and don’t worry so much about your landing because you know it will always be only a few feet off the ground. Get in the sandbox and get all your clothes dirty without caring. Make things just for the sake of making them. Climb the monkey bars and feel the heaviness of your weight, and the strength of your muscles…and don’t be afraid to hold on…or to let go. Give yourself to the resistance, and the release, as you feel.
Trust what you feel. Let it be okay. All of it. Open your eyes to a new day, to a sweet rebirth that is all your own. Breathe deep. Throw it all away and make the story untold again. You will find your power there. You will know you truly are one with the creator, and all creation. May your coming year, and all time to follow, be sprinkled graciously with the kind of laughter you forgot you could make, the moments that wrap your heart in absolute splendor, and the luminosity that lights the heavens with tiny, bright flames. May you be loved, more and deeper than ever before, and may you be astounded by your own beauty in ways you have never been before.
Happy New Year….
Love,
Jennifer Luna
Looking for some ways to celebrate a new start? Visit Jennifer’s list of “Rituals for a New Day”
