The Light at Year's End 
CHRISTMAS is right around the corner. As the year draws to a close, I can feel myself ‘winding down’, as it were, moving toward that point where, come New Year’s Eve, I take some time out to perform my annual ritual of sifting and sorting through the year’s events and my feelings about them.
I never created this ritual by design. It just sort of happened, many years ago, at the end of a pivotal year in my life when almost everything that could go wrong did…quite spectacularly. From this vantage point, of course, I see now that ‘wrong’ was simply a judgment I made from the perspective of that moment, that place, those experiences and feelings.
Not knowing where that unexpected twist in the road would ultimately lead me, I had no insights or foreknowledge to comfort or guide me. The scaffolding of my life had collapsed, and there was nowhere to go but within… into the space that had suddenly opened up in front of me.
Life went on – as of course it always does. As the years have passed, I’ve grown to treasure my little ritual of reviewing what I’ve learnt, and deciding what to keep and what to let go of. And always, there is that wonderful moment when I simply sit in the silence and experience an inner sense of completion.
Life is like a beautiful garden of roses complete with rocky soil and deadly thorns. How can something so beautiful, with such a ravishing fragrance cause such pain and bloodshed?
There's a saying a good friend of mine is fond of quoting… "I'm just thankful thorns have roses". I often used to puzzle at his funny way of looking at things. Now I’m beginning to understand him better.
There are good times, and there bad times, happy times, and sad times, but the gift for me in the aging process is that I now know that, even in the very worst of times, life is brimming with possibility. What is life but a living potential? For without life's backdrop of chaos, tears, and horrific scenes of tragedy, war and destruction, how would we ever come to measure or appreciate compassion, peace and balance?
As 2005 draws to a close, I'm reminded of some powerful words passed down through many generations of great teachers, "In saving oneself, the world is then saved". As I embark once again on my Year’s End ritual, in my release of my story’s struggle and strain, as I embrace both my shadow side and my light, I shall give you my heart in silence, and have faith in those wise teachers' belief that the world will indeed be saved.
Thank you for another year filled with radiant insight and moments so profound that they left me awestruck at our collective ability to survive, and to support one another in ever-expansive ways. It is with this gift that I can embrace the pain and suffering of the world and go on with one hand on my heart, and the other tucked warmly inside yours.
Wishing a very Merry Christmas to you all,
