Contemplate
I'm sitting here, with a cup of mint tea, looking at my snow covered garden, on the last day of the year feeling a huge range of emotions, feeling unsteady, yet steady, feeling overwhelmed yet ready.
As I contemplate the year gone by I am struck by how differently I feel to when I contemplated the year just a few days ago.
Before Christmas I had a surge of hope, energy, brightness about the end of the year and the new year with all its opportunities. Right now, I'm feeling a little empty, my faith is a little knocked and I'm searching to find that hope again.
I realise that this year has been such a play of opposites:
In and out of lockdown
Up and down with emotions
Backwards and forwards with decisions
Wondering if what we do is the right thing or the wrong thing
Times of sorrow and times of joy
Sense of fear and feelings of strength
Confusion and clarity
Tears and smiles
Having more and having less
Feeling freedom and then having it taken away
Distance and closeness
Being apart, yet at the same time together
Opposite opinions, opposite feelings in the space of days, sometimes minutes.
Right now we have the hope of vaccines, light at the end of the tunnel, yet we're back in lockdown, back to the beginning again and that point of light feels a long way off again. More opposites.
Life is always full of opposites, we experience these opposites all the time and sometimes they are heightened by events such as a year like we've been experiencing.
Yoga is full of opposites, inhale and exhale, masculine and feminine energies, left and right, forward bends and back bends. We need both ends to feel the whole. Opposites only exist because of each other.
Nature is full of opposites, day and night, winter and summer, hibernation and growth - each existing for the other.
I am called to one of my favourite quotes as I renew my hope. One that reminds me to be present. To look for what is around me and within me right now. To have awareness of the opposites of past and future, but to be where I am right now, to hold what I have right now and to feel what I feel right now.
Salutation to the Dawn
Look to this day!
For it is life, the very life of life.
In its brief course
Lie all the verities and realities of your existence:
The bliss of growth;
The glory of action;
The splendor of achievement;
For yesterday is but a dream,
And tomorrow is only a vision;
But today, well lived, makes every yesterday
a dream of happiness,
And every tomorrow a vision of hope.
Kalidasa
I don't make new year's resolutions, but I do have intentions. This year it is being kind. To myself and others.
Kindness and love will always balance heaviness and fear. Kindness and love bring everything closer together. They bring light and hope. They build communities and support.