Begining and End

For many past New Year’s Days, I’ve not made any lists or goals. It just never felt right. I remember just giving my attention to what I was feeling, what would be moving or inspiring to myself, or others.

One of my New Year’s rituals is to send a greeting to family and friends. I sit down and write them on New Year’s Eve. This year, I also decided to create the card, a Japanese calligraphy for “beginning and end.” I began practicing the calligraphy, then I created one for each person. About half way through, my brush strokes began to have this “disappearing” or “emerging” feeling to them. There in the words “beginning and end” emerged the essence, the disappearing and emerging nature of “beginning and end.”

Later that day, I wrote these words to accompany each calligraphy, and Jan printed an image from among his photography to compliment.

In the blink of an eye, a beginning ends, and an ending begins. Unable to separate -- relax, surrender, and connect to something indescribable and unknown, feel awe and wonder, a smile inside, a deep breath, the stillness, a moment of experiencing your true self.

This year was no different. No lists, no to’dos, no big goals or aspirations, just this feeling, this sense of something meaningful about the beginning and the end of things, of tasks, of projects, even of life. It isn’t so much about the “what” anymore, as it is about the “how.” Like how I realized my interest to provide end-of-life support by just sitting, by non-doing, rather than reading books, talking to mentors, and going to workshops. When I am not pre-occupied to do, do, do, I learn to take my queues from my life, from what is presently emerging, and trusting myself to respond, to follow-through with humility, and love, and gratitude.

In this way, celebrating the past and the new year occurs in each and every moment.