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How many ‘ends of the world’ have you lived through?
Quite a few if you’re my age.
I remember being on the bus in first grade when one of the older kids informed everyone that this would be our last bus ride home — the end of the world was upon us. He had just learned of it in history class.
It was a solemn walk home as everyone said their goodbyes. It even seemed like a darkness was setting in — at 3:30 in the afternoon.
How quickly we humans can attune ourselves to whatever reality we think is coming!
Well, the sun came up the next day and onto the bus we went…a little confused.
How many ‘ends of the world’ have you known? Y2K, the Mayan Calendar, too many days this year.
This year’s Winter Solstice is said to be a special one — the Great Conjunction with Jupiter and Saturn aligning for the first time in awhile. ‘The dawning of the Age of Aquarius!’ some say!
Maybe it will be a new time, a new era, and everything will be made new for us.
And maybe not. How quickly so many of us are saying how much we want to get back to the way it was before covid-quarantining and the covid-nastiness to one another when someone wears or doesn’t wear a mask to our liking.
I don’t know about you…but I’ve learned a lot about myself and life during the covid-quarantine(s)…things I don’t want to go back to my old life, some things that can’t.
It will be a new world for sure. An old world is ending. No matter how hard we try, we won’t be able to ‘go back’ to the old ways pre-quarantine. We won’t fit into our old lives, no matter how hard we try.
We’ve been made new by an experience, by new experiences.
Are special planets aligning and special moons influencing to create a new age? Who knows.
One thing’s for sure is that we can make choices about how to live our lives with joy and purpose — no matter what the circumstances. The Spring disappearance of flour and yeast from the grocery shelves was a bother — and a reminder of trying to craft a life of joy in our quarantined homes. The social media photos of friends baking bread and loving that experience in those early weeks were extraordinary. How long had we waited to entertain joy like this?
There is gift in change, and in enjoying freshly made bread from one’s own hands.
We’ve been gathering for Winter Solstice at VITALITY since the beginning, 2010. Why? I think the first year was just a coincidence…our Inner Journey night happened to be on the Solstice and we thought it would be fun to make a safe/fake indoor fire and gather and share food and write or draw like we are invited to do and laugh and live.
We continue that tradition this year too — this time via Zoom. Monday, Dec 21 at 7pm, led by Penny Costilla, cost is by donation.
Maybe you feel moved to join us? Maybe you’re curious about how you can not only live in light and darkness on this darkest night of the year but be light and darkness…be it ALL, love ALL of it. Maybe you just wan’t something different that night.
Reach out to me for the Zoom link. Know you are welcome in the circle.
Maybe great change is upon us, even more change in our future. It all changes, yes? Change is the only constant upon which we can depend.
What a gift to be able to gather and lean into it and laugh and love…
Brian Shircliff
program director
513.300.5174
check out our full documentary by clicking here and please share it with someone who needs to know that change can be fun and easy in a circle of friends!
