Sunset

Year's end. How can that be? I read a poem this morning that used the image of the hourglass to talk about how we watch the moments of our lives slip through the tiny hole that is time, into "the past," leaving an ever smaller supply of moments to expend.

As I get older, that decreasing supply becomes mesmorizing. It moves whether I move or not. It threatens to leave me staring fixated as I lose all opportunity to finish what I imagine is "my work." I only see the back of the tapestry and it is not a pretty sight, albeit colorful.

The end of a year always makes me melacholy now. Time speeds so ridiculously past me that I've long since stopped trying to grab it as it shoots by. There is so much to do, so much that's wrong. And I am so helplessly befuddled (yet) by those elements of existence that could have but didn't ultimately shatter my ability to function at all. I work so hard at trying to keep the edges from unraveling, too often taking myself FAR too seriously. But maybe this mark of the tormented soul is what opens a window on a deeper consciousness. Yes?

Am I tormented? I certainly used to be and sometimes still find myself in that space. But now, increasingly, my torment is for others rather than mySelf. It hurts me deeply how little I have been able to do to make a difference in the world, no matter how diligent I have tried to be, no matter what I do accomplish. I spend so much of the little time I have doing what amounts to pleasuring myself. Yet is not the joyous exhale, too, part of healing a world gone wrong?

You, dear members of the Blogosphere, whether you are readers or writers or both, have held me to the earth another year. And for that I am most positively grateful. Let us shake off the past and celebrate the breath that we are given. Let us trust the process to end up where it will. Let our voices rise like the scent of many flowers in the darkness that seems so deep, but can only be followed by the coming of the light. Come, Light. I pray you find us still prepared and ready to do our part.

________________________________________________________

The photo above was taken by my good friend Ed, a fellow struggler on this path we call life.