Dear Friends
Another year glides silently by.
I am casting my eye over Ovid’s Fasti in this liminal space that marks the final days to New Year.
From Book I: January 1: Kalends:
A prosperous day dawns: favour our thoughts and speech!
Let auspicious words be said on this auspicious day.
Over 2000 years have passed since these words were first etched into wax tablet, and while they remain a fair gesture, I struggle for such speech now, my mind doubled down by darkness—even as I shade my eyes from the brightness of the southern summer sun.
Yet there really is nothing I need say. The call is to listen. Deeply listen, in the old ways, to the old sounds. The clue is hiding in the word itself; auspicious coming from the Latin auspex, meaning “an observer of prophecies given by birds.”
That’s the kind of listening required of us now.
So we bid farewell to the year, another pockmarked by the looming spectre of biospheric calamity, by further conflict and heartache and loss.
And the crowd wear the colours of the festival. (Ovid)
It’s easy to understand the yearning to cast off our troubles, to renew and recalibrate. The intricate threads wear thin throughout the year, and after all we’ve been through, it’s natural to crave a fresh beginning—even if for some, it winds up amounting to little more than fireworks and alcohol.
Without ritual, and embracing life's intrinsic capacity for renewal, mistakes risk becoming profane and etched into the fabric of each passing year.
This brings us invariably to the modern ritual of New Year’s resolutions and goal-setting. I’ve always been averse to fixating oneself on such things, instead choosing to find a path that reveals itself somewhere at the crossroads of ability and desire.
Thus, rather than adhering myself in some external way to rigidly predefined and measurable goals, I turn inward and actively imagine a ‘way of life’ that I can discipline myself towards.
I think this brings me closer to becoming myself, and certainly flips the script on what success and failure look like. It steps me out of the time-bound and into the timeless playground of soul, which to me, is what this space between years represents.
Peace for the fertile earth, peace for the seas. (Ovid)
Implicit in all this are the notions of peace and forgiveness, capable of liberating us from this cycle of perpetuating past mistakes.
We must find ways to let go and allow ourselves to be touched anew by life as it truly is—creation in perpetual motion. This involves a special kind of inner peace, one which radiates from the heart. Only then can it be heard by Ovid’s earth and seas, who in return send their own message.
Can you quiet yourself enough to hear them?
Suddenly, life is less about length and more about breadth. When I look at life through this lens, all these endings—even death—are just more opportunities to learn. They are, in and of themselves, beginnings of the next chapter.
A few words of my own:
We are all a great story,
and like all great stories,
we have a beginning, a middle and an end.Perhaps just not in that order.
I was born in the middle,
a warrior called to duty
from his very first breath.I died amid a pile of bodies
four decades later, and now
have only just begun.Inside my blood,
there’s another end beginning,
a story told, yet not.
What I do know is this—
there is a time for sprouting and another for wilting,
they are each written into the other.
In the space between,
let’s break the hourglass
and dance in the sand.The shards may cut our feet
but they will reflect the moonlight over the sea
in fractal patternsbeyond our wildest imagination.
As the year ends and begins, whether you’re dancing, singing, hugging, laughing, or simply walking barefoot on the earth, let’s make a collective prayer for renewal, peace and forgiveness. Let’s each foster our own way of life that leads us closer to articulating our desires, understanding our gifts, learning how to master them and offering them freely in service to life.
On the path to becoming ourselves, let’s begin by listening.
I’m reminded of Bashō, as translated by Robert Bly:
“The temple bell stops—but the sound keeps coming out of the flowers.”
I hope you find a moment to step away from the noise and listen for the Great Sound—as the year glides silently by.
Oceans of love.
Asher