2013 – A Year of Completion and New Beginnings
December 21s 2012 marked the Mayan End of Time, the end of a 5126 year cycle and the beginning of the transition from one World Age to another. If you are one of the many people for whom the Mayan prophecy is meaningless, I invite you to consider it as an archetype – a potent symbol in the collective unconscious, which when made conscious releases a transformative power.
” The Hopi and Mayan elders do not prophesy that everything will come to an end. Rather, this is a time of transition from one World Age into another. The message they give concerns our making a choice of how we enter the future ahead. Our moving through with either resistance or acceptance will determine whether the transition will happen with cataclysmic changes or gradual peace and tranquility.” — Joseph Robert Jochmans – See more at: http://www.adishakti.org/
The idea of a transition which we can choose to approach with acceptance resonates with meaning for me, only I would add creativity to acceptance. On a personal level I’ve been reflecting on a chapter of my life that started 21 years ago – that’s a little bit easier to wrap my mind around than 5126 years. For me, 2013 has been a year of completion and, as 2014 approaches, I feel the excitement of new beginnings.
I’ll throw in another potent archetypal symbol – the Ouroboros, or the snake devouring its tail. This is an ancient alchemical and mystical symbol, representing the eternal cycle of renewal – or the opportunity that lies in endings and beginnings for achieving new levels of harmony and unity.
What has all this to do with everyday life? You could say every human life is a transition – a journey from where we are to where we want to be – or the unfolding of our unique life purpose which, like a seed, has its own DNA or inner patterning. And on this journey there are many choice points. We make choices every day but there are doorways which mark times of special opportunity for change. How we choose to approach and move through these doorways affects how we live for years to come.
The chapter of my own life I’ve been revisiting started with what is commonly called the Mid-life Crisis, around the age of 40. At that time I was going through the classic midlife symptoms of disillusionment, outgrowing the identity I’d been inhabiting and ready to slough it off like the old snake skin. I was personally and professionally very unhappy, and whereas until that point I had been focused outwardly – actively participating in relationship, community and business – suddenly all I wanted to do was turn inwards. One day in June 1992 I began to write the book that had been germinating inside me for six years and by so doing embarked upon my authentic creative path as a writer. On the very same day I was introduced to a powerful meditation practice which initiated me onto my spiritual path. On that day I made two crucial decisions. The first was that I would follow my creative process wherever it led me. And the second, that I would not have another intimate relationship until I knew how to love consciously. Those choices shaped the ensuing twenty-one years of my life.
In 2013 I have been in a process of completion of this last chapter and this has taken much time and energy. As I’ve been ending one chapter I’ve also been beginning the next and doing both at once can be stressful. Completing means reviewing, experiencing again anything which has not been fully accepted and integrated, realizing all the gifts even those in painful experiences, releasing what is no longer useful, letting go of attachment to the old story and the old limited identity.
Beginning means standing at a new doorway and making new choices: re-visioning, getting in touch with what is truly important, what is most valued and what we want to give priority to, choosing that and committing to make that real. And then stepping into the unknown and being willing to engage in life as an experiment in consciousness, guided by one’s values, intentions and choices, open to respond to what comes. This is the process of transformation.
My latest venture, Tribe in Transition, has grown out of the inner work I’ve been doing over this last year and it’s also a gathering of all the threads of my soul work over a life time. My mission is to bring people together into deep community conversations through which we can discover a common language and shared understandings for our collective process of transition, so that we can all move forward with more grace, ease and joy. I believe we are standing at a time of great opportunity to become the Whole New Human and to co-create a Whole New World. If you would like to join me on this adventure please leave your name and email in the box provided on this page and/or a comment on the blogpost I will look forward to connecting with you.
December 2013
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