Over the last year I've been sitting back, watching lots of dramas play out. Groups splintering, belief paths diverging, relationships ending, jobs disappearing. We're all familiar with the big ones -- the world economy diving, governments crumbling -- or at least their integrity is taking a nose dive. As I observe these patterns coming to ends, I'm reminded of the optimism and excitement that was rampant at this time last year. Remember? Winter Solstice 2012? It had a certain ring, an air of mystery. Even if you didn't buy into the prophecy proclamations, propaganda made it impossible to escape the finality of it marking an end. To some, it was The End of a way of consciousness as we've known it.
At that point, there seemed to be moot acceptance that certain systems would fall -- the "bad" ones, the inhumane, unhealthy, hateful, harmful ones. Yet, a year later, we're confused as to the sweeping personal dramas, the inability for rote patterning to quench deep desire. Some of the closings aren't terribly dramatic. I've had a lot of people report that they just can't go through the motions of every day as they used to. Their daily routine no longer fits. The rituals they've followed to get ready for work for 15 years suddenly constrict. The desire for a new shiny elusive something won't abate. In particular, many express feeling conflicted about how to approach the holidays, because lifelong traditions feel foreign, yet no new way reveals itself. Old patterns aren't working, but new ones aren't coming.
If we bought into the shift of the last year as bringing the end of systems, then that includes personal ones. Our cherished darlings must break, not just our foes and conflicts. Our habits, even if they aren't overtly harmful or threatening, have to go if they don't support our greater joy. I don't think that means that our relationships will end, or our belief system have to change. I think it means the end of systems, finding comfort in the fact that for now and the foreseeable future, there is no system, on any level.
Our challenge at this time is to stay dynamic. If what worked yesterday isn't working today, so it is. Find a new way. And if tomorrow, none of the above fulfills, there will be another approach. For years I've called this era a "hinge time," because we are at the turning point of treasured Piscean systems giving way to sustainable, organic Aquarian communities.
Center is shifting, constantly. Our job isn't to try to find it, but to shift with it.
I wish you strong bearings this holiday season.