Year End Meditations: Dec 31 2022
Easing into 2023, oh what will be? Hopefully, THE GREAT AWAKENING !
Such a year it’s been, ‘22.
Throughout my long career, I faced numerous events where I desperately tried to inform doctors, scientists, government leaders, of dangerous practices. Seemingly, it was all futile effort. Yet, years later, perspective and new context revealed inklings of background changes resulting from those attempts. And so, this is my mantra as I go from 2022 into the new year 2023:
God, grant me the Serenity
To accept the things I cannot change ...
Courage to change the things I can,
And Wisdom to know the difference. - Serenity Prayer
During the past dark days of the scamdemic / plandemic lockdowns, I spent time reflecting on what it is that truly burns in my soul, inflaming my life passions. I re-examined all the many times I hit a brick wall, or why my life seemed to emulate a ‘pinball machine’, being suddenly whacked into a completely different path.
Those whacks shook loose all that did not fit tight and adhere. Much got left behind. Some fell away. Some was torn away. Some ran away.
What stayed? The core attributes. Hunger to learn. To build. To create. To innovate. These are what helped me ‘ring that bell’ instead of ‘falling through the trapdoors’.
One of the places that I left behind, was Buffalo NY. But the friends made there are not forgotten. I spent my Christmas holiday joyfully reading of the many acts of heroics and compassion shown by Buffalonians toward stranded strangers during the great Blizzard of 2022.
These random acts of love towards one’s neighbors, are what renew my soul.
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A Favorite Poem
that has become my New Year’s tradition— please do see the post featuring, Desiderata
Exercise caution in your business affairs;
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals;
and everywhere life is full of heroism.
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Tarot Card Meditation
What will the new year bring us? Let us look boldly into the future.
Three of Wands Tarot Card Meaning
“A man with two wands, holding a third, looks out to sea, waiting. Sometimes there are boats on the horizon. This is the card of "waiting for the ships to come in."
The person has invested their passion in something - a new career, a big move to a new city (remember wands signify travel as well), maybe they've even thrown their hat into a political ring - and now the energy they sent out is coming back to them. It is a card of progress, of the first hint that the dream can be made real.
This card also indicates that, like a woman holding her newborn babe in her arms for the first time, or a politician hearing that the first round of votes are for him/her, the querent might rightly be feeling a little proud, even powerful. They might be warned, however, to not get too excited. Though there is a sense that positive results are coming in, they should wait till the ships have all appeared and docked before celebrating or boasting.”
“Good foundation have been laid, enthusiasm is high, new plans must be put in action, hard work is ahead. Optimism and satisfaction out of actual accomplishment, the establishment of primeval energy has strength and virtue. Here we have cultural meetings, outgoing with inner visions getting the appreciation hoped for in achievement. This fertile and flexible growth from solid groundwork is a cause for celebration.
Dreams that turn into reality through circumstance and being in the right place at the right time. Successful ventures launched, inspiration and original ideas. Strength coming from successful enterprise due to the courage of one's convictions.”
Song for the New Year
But as we ease on into ‘23, I think we need a bit more glee. So here is my chosen New Year mood setter song —
Joni Mitchell’s Chelsea Morning
Woke up, it was a Chelsea morning
And the first thing that I heard
Was a song outside my window
And the traffic wrote the words
It came ringing up like Christmas bells
And rapping up like pipes and drums
Oh, won't you stay
We'll put on the day
And we'll wear it till the night comes
Woke up, it was a Chelsea morning
And the first thing that I saw
Was the sun through yellow curtains
And a rainbow on the wall
Blue, red, green and gold to welcome you
Crimson crystal beads to beckon
Oh, won't you stay
We'll put on the day
There's a sun show every second
Now the curtain opens
On a portait of today
And the streets are paved with passersby
And pigeons fly
And papers lie
Waiting to blow away
Woke up, it was a Chelsea morning
And the first thing that I knew
There was milk and toast and honey
And a bowl of oranges, too
And the sun poured in like butterscotch
And stuck to all my senses
Oh, won't you stay
We'll put on the day
And we'll talk in present tenses
When the curtain closes
And the rainbow runs away
I will bring you incense owls by night
By candlelight
By jewel-light
If only you will stay
Pretty baby, won't you
Wake up, it's a Chelsea morning
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Amen. Happy New Year!
For a Happy 2023, I wish you a Good Evening this New Year’s Eve and every evening. I think greeting a Good Evening sincerely (from the heart, Dil Se) and a good evening (in the process) can seed the mind with initial conditions for a good night’s sleep to wake up and experience a good morning prepared to reduce the chaos in our routines rushing to be enslaved in a daily routine. Why do I wish that in 2023, the greeting “Good Evening” will be a special reminder? Because chaotic routines are not good practices, we need to be the cause of goodness.
In a hectic, insomniac lifestyle rushing to work in-person or online, with social media distractions, being under surveillance, and mandatory compliance, we trap ourselves in a fight/fight mode (a low order of consciousness). We often do not appreciate and value the evening as a special time and a process to end the chaos in our life. How we make meaning [of the evening] is often corrupted by our biases and cognitive distortions, such as the “fallacy of fairness.”
When we value evening (in time) and validate it as a process, we can change how we make meaning—changing how you construct meaning changes you. Even the playing field reminds us to be fair and to make an effort to provide equal opportunity for all. A prayer mat, a table, or a floor, are flat, are even surfaces. Even numbers divided by two give two whole [equal] numbers. Wholeness means integrity, and hypocrisy is the opposite. What is so holistic about even? How do we even things out, and why don’t we call this process evening?
The evening can be a process that brings fairness and a time to pause, pray, and [or] party. Preferably [and], but if you choose [or] practice responsibly, perhaps your good practices will generate the wisdom to know and feel why and makes sense.
So let us commit to reducing and ending meanness in 2023 and beyond. Let us go then, you and I, when the evening is spread out against the sky (T. S. Eliot), to observe how the evening of life brings with it its lamps (Joseph Joubert) to illuminate why in the morning there is the meaning of mean that we often need to change, and that is why in the evening there is feeling (Gertrude Stein).
May your New Year’s Eve be a nice night for a good evening. For a Happy 2023, I wish you a Good Evening this New Year’s Eve.