Making Sense Out of Year’s End
We are coming to the end of our annual 365-day cycle in a few short weeks amidst our great holiday flurry, meant and pushed in many culturally-driven ways to complete whatever, for us, meaningfully constitutes this year. I saw a client around this time years ago who uncovered what I was moved to title "a terror of completion".
I don’t think we do completion well in our culture. Perhaps we associate it with death, which, we fear, might just mean total annihilation. This core fear drives us to addictions of all kinds, as well as greed, which continues to explode in our world and, saddest of all, sanctioned violence – for "it’s never enough".
The Central Challenge to the Terrible Well of Societal Paranoia
Completion centrally challenges that terrible well of paranoia that continues to poison our society, for the truth of the matter is, completion is enough, end, finish . . . the period at the end of the sentence – the book that closes. I see this as a central challenge to accept, which happens to be the end stage of grief.
Acceptance can only occur from a center of trust. When we are wounded, trust blows apart, and we are driven spiritually, emotionally, mentally, and physically to become Humpty Dumpty, forced to endure, in all corresponding pain, the useless phases of the tale:
We Become Humpty Dumpty
"Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall" – the "wall" can represent our karma, our woundedness from childhood, our ego . . .
"Humpty Dumpty had a great fall" – the "fall" in spiritual terms at its greatest level represents the Fall from Grace and all that it implies and produces, like the story of the Garden of Eden in the Bible . . .
"All the king’s horses and all the king’s men/Couldn’t put Humpty together again" – we strive mightily to "put ourselves back together" the way we were and presented ourselves before our Fall, but it is not possible. What is possible is to "rise to the occasion" presented by this crisis, however it translates in your life, to face the challenge to accept what has happened, and let the completion of the cycle of grief bring its own healing and resolution.
Transcendence through the Soul’s Challenge for Healing and Development
It’s interesting to note that we are so conditioned to make New Year’s resolutions. Can you consider wrapping up your year as if you were Humpty Dumpty, who embraces the "P.S." after the end of the nursery rhyme as a soul challenge to accept, in order to experience core healing and development?
What would your review of this year look like in those terms? This kind of review becomes a most courageous journey which does not lead us to a dead end – quite the opposite. We can never predict what our "re-solution" will be, which forces us to integratively trust.
As trust returns, so can we recover our freedom to be fully present to begin a new cycle from a place of wholeness, clarity and spiritual power, seeing all others in the same light, with the same potential – and yet, expecting nothing. I offer a poem I wrote many years ago to speed you on this journey, with my heartfelt wish for you to receive a full, amazing, miraculous journey of completion through this holiday season.
(Note: This poem is part of a unique collection of poems titled Willing To Be Led Toward Your Heart, just published and available for purchase in hard copy and as an ebook in the Products section of my web site under the following link: https://centeringtools.com/tempcdsales.html)
The Last Great Journey
They say the last great journey
Is the one into your own consciousness
To give the gift to Your Self and Others
Is to ride that wave courageously
Surrendering tiny light
Into great darkness
Finding new light once again
In the shimmering fabric of your soul
Your tall laughing Soul
Your great emerged Self
As Beggar
Transformer
Singer of story songs
You can rest at long last
Giving thanks
As I do to You
For all the light You’ve given me
Godspeed in these holy-daze
Know Your Self
Be Your Self