In the endings are the beginnings

December 2013

To begin we end. The wonderful, awful, heart-breaking invitation of the season is to navigate the endings to embrace the beginnings.  How?  Yes.  We must. Change. 

It’s a tortuous rhythm: the pulse of movement from old to new us clinging to the past while grasping for the future.  There is bittersweet challenge in letting go to begin again.  We struggle to know how to take the good of the past into changes for a new beginning.

Let’s choose to say thank you.  As we end to begin, create space for applause.  We can achieve nothing on our own and the wondrous experiences that launched the beginnings will be made perfect in endings distinctive for gratitude.  Let’s give thanks for this past year and for all those who have loved us, helped us: encouraged, cajoled, nurtured and challenged us. Let’s say thank you even as we wrestle with those who began with us and end with us. They are our companions as we make new beginnings.  They are the wisdom and beauty we take along with us.  We start fresh with learned knowledge from humble beginnings that find fulfilment in endings, to begin: once again. 

I choose to say thank you.  As this year ends, the projects finish, school closes down and friends move on, I give thanks for the gifts of creative grace.  I am grateful for each one whom made remnant dance foraging possible, magical, mysterious and beautiful.  Thank you – yes!  For you, I give thanks.

Change. We must.  Yes.  How?   In this season of giving, let’s stop for a moment and applaud those who began, so that we too might begin.  Let’s wrap up this year with thanksgiving for endings that have given the gift of beginning.