“The new year dawns bright, clear and mysterious. \u00a0May it be one of inner peace and world peace for all living things.” (from a Unitarian Universalist Service Committee holiday card, saved and savored since the mid-eighties)<\/p>\n
We welcome January, the gate of the year.\u00a0This first month refers both to the goddess Jana, the Mother of Time, and to the two-headed Janus, the Roman god who stands in the doorway, looking both outward and inward, backwards and forwards, watching over comings and goings.
\n\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0While we moderns may no longer \u2018believe\u2019 in these ancient deities, they may well remain in our psyches, far below the level of consciousness, waiting to be reactivated whenever we begin a new year. And why not? With the winter solstice just passed and the light growing stronger and staying longer, we sense that we stand at a threshold of a new day, a new year.<\/p>\n
We too sense a call to take stock, and make promises.
\nThus, many of us will resolve to make changes in the new year, yet become frustrated when we break our resolutions, sooner or later. Perhaps a more realistic approach might be this:
\n\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0reframing the past,
\n\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 reprogramming the present,
\n\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 responding to the future.<\/p>\n
We can choose to reframe the story of our lives by looking at what went right, rather than only dealing with the traumatic events that send us into therapy. Then by making even small changes in our present routines, we can break the habits that limit us with their comfortable familiarity. Thus ready, we can open to whatever the future has in store.\u00a0<\/p>\n
So why bother? \u00a0As spiritual director John Yungblut once put it:<\/p>\n
“The macrocosm of a cosmos still being born has its counterpart in a human being assimilating into wholeness its ever changing and enlarging experiences. \u00a0The counterpoint of the vast universal theme of complexity is the solitary process of individuation in each human person.”<\/em><\/p>\n And thus for this first morning of the new year (1-1-2011), Milt charts the sun’s rising on the kitchen wall, keeping track of its ever so slight migration northward along the eastern horizon. \u00a0This movement is so immutable we can set our calendars by it, as did our ancient ancestors at America’s Stonehenge not far from where I grew up, totally unaware that it was there. \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0Yet while the cosmic dance doesn’t change, we the people do: each day, each year, we are in a slightly different place in our lives, and the world looks a bit differently. \u00a0 When we consciously align our own process of indivuation with evolution’s process of complexity consciousness, we become as co-creators of something new that has not yet become incarnate on this Earth.\u00a0<\/p>\n We can do more than just wish for a brighter future; we can help create it!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" “The new year dawns bright, clear and mysterious. \u00a0May it be one of inner peace and world peace for all living things.” (from a Unitarian Universalist Service Committee holiday card, saved and savored since the mid-eighties) We welcome January, the gate of the year.\u00a0This first month refers both to the goddess Jana, the Mother of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-259","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-connecting-consciousness"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.nowforourturn.org\/CosmicReflections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.nowforourturn.org\/CosmicReflections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.nowforourturn.org\/CosmicReflections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.nowforourturn.org\/CosmicReflections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.nowforourturn.org\/CosmicReflections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=259"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.nowforourturn.org\/CosmicReflections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":266,"href":"http:\/\/www.nowforourturn.org\/CosmicReflections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259\/revisions\/266"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.nowforourturn.org\/CosmicReflections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.nowforourturn.org\/CosmicReflections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.nowforourturn.org\/CosmicReflections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}