Happy End of Days!!
December 21, 2012. I awoke at dawn – struggling against my own demons, waiting for the conflagration, for the “end of days”. I was met with a pink sunrise that set the eucalyptus trees outside my window afire in every shade of violet– but certainly no end of days.
I am guessing that the Mayans were not speaking of an end but rather a beginning. I was raised Hindu- and our religious tenets, which often draw upon cosmology, hold to an ever expanding and contracting universe, and epochs that speak to new beginnings, clearing out the old, letting go of the junk we let define us.
Most of us will get caught up in the hung over haze of January 1 with clean calendars and datebooks trying to take on new years and new me’s and all of that. I am setting off on a book tour that day so it is a special year for me – but in the days that lead up, and especially today – I realize that the Mayans are telling me to wake the hell up.
But the Mayans weren’t talking about doom and gloom, but rather of clearing out one life and starting another. So perhaps today, on this longest night of the year, when we take stock, and try to find answers in the darkness, the stars, the moon. When we take stock as we stand in the midst of forced holiday revelry, some of us grieving, some of us joyful, all of us growing. It’s a day for a fresh start.
Perhaps if everyone took a moment today. Quieted the noise. Listened to their hearts. Asked themselves “what do I want my life to look like”. Authentically. And bravely walk into that future – then it truly is an end of days.
An end of business as usual. An end of living the scripts of others. An end of being unkind to ourselves. An end to abusing our bodies, souls and minds. An end to worshipping our iPhones and smartphones and tablets and instead worshipping a sunset or a sky full of stars.
I awaken to a broken toe and few other broken parts today. And today I intend to commemorate the end of days. I am taking my journal and a bit of sage and limping out to my special promontory and setting a path – of authenticity, of heart, of gratitude, of growth, of commitment, of self-care, of connecting with others. I am letting go of ghosts, and demons, and hurts. The end of days is a beginning and an end.
I leave it to all of you to find your ritual today. Let New Year’s Eve be the usual champagne infused bacchanalia (I intend to…) but let today and an ancient calendar be a wake up call.
Or as TS Eliot writes “What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.”
Happy End of Days – I wish you a beautiful new calendar and life…..
