Wrapping
Up
“Though
my soul may set in darkness,
it
will rise to perfect light.
I
have loved the stars too fondly
to
be fearful of the night.”
Sarah
Williams (The Old Astronomer)
If
you're anything like me, inside your head you're beginning to wrap up
the year. There's something about this week between Christmas and New
Year's that makes us want to take stock. We need to look back before
we can look forward. Most of us see that the road through 2015 has
not been smooth; it's had a few, maybe even more than a few,
twists and turns. Many of us, especially our young adults, are
counting their coins and wondering whether this is the “new
normal.” The economy is decidedly better than it was in 2008, but
it's not very deep. The people in the middle and at the bottom are
still scraping to get by. Many of us have become entrepreneurs out of
necessity. There is a huge migration of refugees on all
continents—people moving because of war, or out of economic
desperation, in such huge numbers that they overwhelm the systems of
the countries they enter. Even when we are not personally impacted by
that, we feel it and it worries us. What's going to happen? How will
it get resolved?
Taking
stock also covers the areas of soul and psyche. Our brows furrow as
we contemplate whether we have navigated the year successfully. What
has happened in our life that made us happy, and what made us
sad? How is our head-space? How's our heart? Do we stay the course,
or do we make plans to change? Will it mean uprooting ourselves and
starting over? Sometimes we lie awake in the middle of the dark night
with all these questions playing on an endless loop. Only humans do
that, and we are human. The middle of the night is when some of us do
our best thinking, but we don't like it. We just want to sleep.
If
it feels like everything is in flux, that's because it is. We are in
the midst of many transitions. In some places, we are going from an
industrial economy to a service and incubator economy; in others from
agrarian to industrial and in some, we're just trying to stay alive
until the war ends. Transitional places are uncomfortable and anxiety
provoking. Sometimes, they're just plain miserable. A good thing to
remember in the dark hours of the night is that they are transitory.
They change. When we are experiencing the ebb before the flow, it
seems as though nothing is moving. It feels stagnant. Keep telling
yourself, “This too shall pass.” All of life is ebb and flow,
twist and turn; change is the only constant. Being open to change,
enjoying the good days, keeping faith on the hard ones, is how we
navigate this river successfully. Our small canoe may be swamped at
times, may even dump us straight into the water, but help is always
available—within and without.
This
is a transitional week. It's a good time to take stock. What has
happened this year? What needs to change? What should continue into
the new year. What steps are necessary to make this happen? How am I
feeling about it? Good questions for wrapping up the year, and
setting the stage for the next.
In
the Spirit,
Jane
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