I planted a seed intention this past Solstice and gave it to the Great Mother, the Mother of all Life so that new life will be born. I honoured this intention with beautiful and simple ceremony to re-orient myself toward the new and rising light.
On Christmas Eve, I listened to the carol O Holy Night, and allowed myself the openness to receive this new light again. Yes, again. To become vulnerable and open to the mystery that together darkness and light birth into new life, imbued with the soul’s intentions towards the creativity and becoming/maturing love.
And on Christmas Day, I reflected upon and re-read the stories of how Christmas came to be, the values of love, charity, generosity and of valuing all beings with true support and compassion. That on this day, as we ourselves practise this generosity of spirit and compassion, accepting the vulnerability and awe of this new life we have said ‘yes’ to once again, we extend 
to ourselves the gift of grace and kindness, of good will and blessing as well as to others.
However we choose to bring ritual and ceremony to our lives, the power of opening up to and allowing the presence of the Great Mystery into our ordinary experience, a miracle awaits us. Sometimes It is difficult for us to return to this place of life’s miracles. Amid the world’s violence, the images of brutality towards each other and towards Nature that assaults our spirits daily make it extraordinarily challenging to become vulnerable like a child again.
In truth, we aren’t asked to become naive and blind to what we see and know, blind to the suffering all around us. Blind faith drives out compassion and generosity of spirit. To return to a state of openness and vulnerability as a choice within one’s own place of wisdom is indeed challenging. No wonder we are driven to over-consumption and distraction during this season in just about every way we can imagine.
So how will this year be different? What will be new in this world of the same old injustice, colonialism, violence and bigotry?
For me, it lies in the surrender of my intentions, intentions that call for 3 simple, focused practices:
- Release my emotional attachment (…to my pain)
- Embrace love in my new life
- “Thank you” – a conscious, happy gratitude for everything, everyday.
If I am truly open to the Great Mother who gives light to me and my intentions, if I am truly willing to come back to the dark to be awakened into new life and light through the Great Mother, then I will need to practise daily release and embrace. When I release what is no longer needed, nor in service to my new life, I am free to become the life seeking to live through me here and now.
When I embrace the life and light which seeks to flow and express itself through me in this new arising, this next turning toward the light, literally the sun, then I discover my sense of belonging and purpose in my life. I know my own inner balance because I have the parameters of what to offer in balance with my receiving. And the clarity of what is next is revealed, step by step. This clarity brings a sense of order and thus too, a sense of what is good and honouring of both the past and the future.
Yes, this year will be different because I also have a very simple plan of doing different. Will you join me? Will you make a plan to do different? Do you need help to make the doing different simple enough, focused enough, incremental step by step enough that you are willing, able and ready to do different and invest in yourself differently this year?
Let’s work together to do our lives differently, better. Let’s be the ones who restore light and love in our hearts, joy in our minds and purpose in our feet and hands. As we each commit to return to wholeness, which can only be travelled through stepping into the cracks and the dark, we make it possible for others to discover this path of wholeness just by being in our presence and witnessing who we be together in the cracks welcoming the light.
Whatever intention, commitment or mantra you have planted and made for 2020, join me in doing different to ‘be’ different, spreading what is lightly different in a dark and lost world. Peace to you.
Namaste,
Shirley Lynn