It's a new year, a new cycle of movement around the sun. A fresh set of 365 shadows growing, tilting and then being swallowed by all their respective evenings.
The movement of sunlight and shadow is graceful, slow, gentle, and calm too.
Think on this: how would it help life to set a gentle pace that's manageable for weeks and months ahead? Nevermind going into a new year all guns blazing, radicalising everything we see and turning everything we touch to gold with a vain promise of overnight transformation. How about a commitment to flow with the sunlight and shadows as they come to us – one day at a time, with elegance and grace, and that as the small elements of our life take their place in the cycling shadows and light they will grow as naturally as they are meant?
Throwing open the shutters on a new year, does a flash of sunlight hurt the eyes? Difficult to adjust? Hard to locate new focal points in a fresh and unfamiliar view?
My view at the moment is difficult. Some lovely things have been happening and I have felt happy and at peace in a new relationship and with achievements in my work. With love in that relationship, I found courage to take brave steps and face things that have been concreted over for a very long time. It was just after Christmas when I visited my mother's grave for the first time in 25 years.
Grief is here. It is here, and not to be covered up with that concrete again, because being honest about loss and fear is the first step in moving beyond them to live more freely, able to relate and thrive. Sitting with this feels terribly sad though—so bleak and uncomfortable—and I'm not sure I can do it.
Not rushing out from a shadow is a difficult position to take, yet if I don't want to keep getting stuck behind old habits this has to be done.
However, there are no shadows without light. Whatever the challenge—and let's face it the world is a tricky place at the moment—there is hope, and there is love, and that equals life.
When there in the shadows this is what I tell myself: Breathe. Breathe again, and remember…
'Courage does not always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day, saying, "I will try again tomorrow." '
Dear friends, whatever the new view from your open shutters looks like, a very happy new year to you. I hope you have a beautiful, peaceful and love-filled journey 'once around the sun' this year.
{Today's Soundtrack: Arvo Pärt - Spiegel Im Spiegel}
