The end of 2016 for all people living by this calendar, represents the end of a cycle and the beginning of a new one.
Of course Life keeps on doing what Life does… regardless of calendars.
But symbolic markers are good opportunities to take stock, to reflect and to ponder.
Who have we been and how did we live this life of ours throughout this cycle… what felt significant and what felt great.
What pushed our buttons and what we let go of…
As we do our reviewing, we tend to classify events and moments as good or bad, as successes or failures, as threats or victories… and we lose sight of what essentially has been ours each day: 24 hours of wondrous Life.
Taken for granted.
Crammed full with mundane obligations, dulled with habits or spoiled with fears and moods.
I choose to receive each of these days of my life as a gift.
And sometimes, you know, I am not thrilled about the packaging.
Sometimes circumstances rock my world. Sometimes I am tempted to be critical of what I receive.
Sometimes I don’t see the gift, really.
But I keep reminding myself: this is my gift from Life.
And as I do, I feel my heart swell with unmitigated grateful receiving.
Everything that has shaped my life so far, everything that I sometimes regretted, blamed, feared, or raged about… it brought me to being alive today, right here, right now.
What keeps the galaxies turning and makes each snow flake unique is also keeping my heart beating and my hair growing and my neurons firing… I am part of the cosmos. Life is breathing me.
What I don’t fully understand or appreciate is still part of my curriculum and as such, part of my becoming, part of my experience as pure consciousness embodied in a human form.
And as such, it is a true privilege.
When I choose consciously to receive everything in my life as the sacred gift that it is, I am given new doors, new opportunities, new understandings and new experiences, and I become greater in the process.
As I become greater and feel grateful for all of it, Life responds with yet more greatness.
Really all it takes is to stop fighting, stop trying to out-think what makes planets, butterflies and stem cells and makes them so well… and surrender in wonder, awe and reverence to it.
All it takes is to look at the gift and be grateful, and look for clues, look for ease, listen to the soft whisper of grace, of soul driven desire to silence the loud voices of doubt, worry and insecurity.
This day is a gift.
This year was a gift.
The year to come, the breath to come are a gift.
When we live our life every day from desire, from wonderment, from willingness to flow with it, miracles do happen, all the time.
One day we’ll leave this state of being humanly embodied and discover what’s next, but as long as my blood circulates in my veins, as long as my breath comes in and out, as long as I am given to be here, I want to be so grateful for and so trustful in the Life force in me that I don’t get in its way.
I know by past experiences that when I am in that state of being, in that flow of thinking, in that way of feeling, Life gives me exactly what I need and more.
Take a moment dear ones, let go of the pesky random thoughts of criticism, fear and regret… 2016 has been a fabulous gift and so will be 2017, if we let it.
Blessings and light.
Emmeline