Each day, I receive a post from Richard Rohr at the Center for Meditation and Contemplation. Rohr is a Franciscan monk for those of you not familiar with the name. In today’s post, he wrote about change, an apt post for this ending/turning time of the year.
“Exponential change creates exponential fear along with exponential hope. Massive transformation creates the double-edged cultural sword of decline and renewal. Exponential change ends those things that people once assumed and trusted to be true. At the same time, upheaval opens new pathways to the future. Change is about endings and beginnings and the necessary interrelationship between the two.”
While I stay abreast of the news and know what’s going on, I choose not to live in fear. It’s not effective. What I do live in is the reality of change.
My previous post was on the Solstice. For the three days following the Solstice, the Sun stands still in the sky, and on the 25th it begins its movement north again. That change has been going on so long, we can’t even count the years except for approximations. The Sun returns. Every year.
And every few decades or centuries, earth’s civilizations go through a massive change. And after a time of turmoil, the civilizations renew and another epoc is born which would not have come about had there not been the preceding upheaval. In other words, change fulfills “the necessary interrelationship between the two.”
Now we are coming to the end of another calendar year and about the begin anew. We’ll make resolutions, I suppose, because that’s the habit, and most of them will be broken. Perhaps that’s because in making resolutions, we force change rather than allow it to make its own time in the same way forcing corrections in the Julian calendar made it accommodate human inconsistency. The Hebrew calendar, on the other hand, seems more logical (and more difficult) in its correlation with lunisolar movements.
I tend to watch the sun and moon progressions. But we live in a world defined by numbers, and so, in this darkening evening outside my window, in a year winding to its end, I wish you an interesting 2018.
By happenstance, the numbers in 2018 add up to 11, and in the esoteric language (I am nothing if not esoteric-led) the number 11 is one of the Master Numbers, meaning it cannot be reduced further.
“In Numerology 11 is the most intuitive of all numbers. It represents illumination; a channel to the subconscious; insight without rational thought; and sensitivity, nervous energy, shyness, and impracticality. It is a dreamer.”
And so, in this new year dawning, I wish you pleasant dreaming. Be bold in your dreams; be patient; change and hope; and trust the journey.
J.
**photo by Jerry Stump
janetsunderland.com 
Thank you, Janet. As is true more often than not, your thoughts and writing align with “where I am” — your blogs a touchstone for my own reflections.
Ah, Leslie, what a sweet comment. I’m honored my blogs create a touchstone for you! Thank you for telling me.
I was about to comment on your Mum’s tradition on previous post but got chatting to you 🙂 I enjoyed reading about her solstice tradition. It was new to me – for we do not experience it. Or is it that we are unaware?
Thanks for opening up my mind .. also on the Calendars which I have since researched 🙂 and for the link on Richard Rohr. I love his work .. and his book Jesus’ Plan for a New World Order (have a post somewhere in my draft box 🙂 )
I can add clay and Rohr to the things we like in common 🙂
Cheers Janet .. and very best to you for the New Year and enjoy the journey as you walk in the light of Love.
Two comments made me suddenly aware you must be in the Southern Hemisphere. 1. The word “Mum” and 2. not experiencing Solstice. Yes, of course you experience it as it’s the sun and wherever you are, you’re on the earth, but in the Southern Hemisphere, its the longest day of the year. i.e. Summer Solstice rather than a Winter Solstice. If I were to guess, I’d say Australia. Our Summer Solstice is June 21st. The other possibility is that you live in Northern Europe when, this time of year, the days are all realllllly short, and the nights realllllly long, and where people also say Mum.
I was going to add a link to research the calendars, but I figured a link might be too much so didn’t. Kudos on your research! Fascinating, isn’t it?
Smile smile … and the word mum is a give away I guess (now that you have pointed it out) – to probably all with links to the British Commonwealth, present or past.
I’m from Sunny Sri Lanka – tropical isle where the sun seems to shine endlessly so we are hardly aware of the solstice …though I shall certainly look out for it this year and perhaps remember the traditions of a certain Mom 🙂
Cheers … translated as Jaya Weva in SL !!
Ah! yes, the Brits did get around, didn’t they. LOL. And that explains why you don’t notice the Solstices. My sister lives on Hawaii Island, a bit more north of your latitude, but not really northern. I lived there for a year, and pretty much, the sun stayed the same year round.
I once had a teacher from Sri Lanka, Bhanti Kamalasiri. He gave me two of my life-lines: sitting in meditation, about thirty minutes in with legs and back aching, he’d say, “Lift the corners of your mouth,” and we did, and we’d all be smiling. Or at least I would be. Lift the corners of your mouth…. And the other line was from a time I’d gone to see him just to talk, worried about life, about my grown children. He fixed tea in two round bowls and we sat at a table. I related my litany of worry; he listened. Then said, in his lovely clipped accent, “But Janet, you are sitting with a friend, you have a cup of warm tea in your hands, what is so very wrong right now?” Emphasizing the “right now.” Ergo, Sri Lanka has always been close to my heart. I have another friend from Sri Lanka who now lives in Australia.
One can complain about the Internet and social media etc, but I am grateful for friends far away with whom I can communicate. Jaya Weva!!
Yes … and thank you to the internet and WordPress who bring friends together who have never met physically : Jaya Weva to strengthening – and renewing –
friendships in the New Year.
Agreed. My other Sri Lanka friend in Australia reached out today, too. Thank you Internet!