We crossed a threshold last night, from one year into the next. Such a crossing is always a sacred event according to Mircea Eliade, the great historian of religion.
...This annual expulsion of sins, diseases, and demons is basically an attempt to restore - if only momentarily - mythical and primordial time, "pure" time, the time of the "instant" of the Creation. Every New Year is a resumption of time from the beginning, that is, a repetition of the cosmogony. The ritual combats between two groups of actors, the presence of the dead, the Saturnalia, and the orgies are so many elements which ...denote that at the end of the year and in the expectation of the New Year there is a repetition of the mythical moment of the passage from chaos to cosmos.
...In each of these systems we find the same central idea of the yearly return to chaos, followed by a new creation. [Eliade, The Myth of the Eternal Return, 1954]
In essence, we begin each new year in the primordial state of chaos (having purged the previous year's sins and transgressions) and can then reshape and renew our lives as though it were the first year. We have lost touch with this element of time in our (post)modern world. On the other hand, we have transcended and included this worldview and can access it to add depth to our conception of the new year.
Nice thought that has nothing to do with this article from Psychology Today.
To acknowledge and cross a new threshold is always a challenge. It demands courage and also a sense of trust in whatever is emerging.
- John O' Donohue
Each of us is always on a threshold of change. Especially as we usher out the old, and ring in the New Year - it marks a clear change in our western calendars and emotional landscape. A new year is often filled with hope, optimism and a positive outlook no matter what situation you are facing. It's as if the fates give us a blank canvas or so it feels.I find myself on an interesting threshold that never before have I crossed. My first parenting book, 365 Perfect Things to Say to Your Kids, is being released on January 1st on Amazon. It brings with it the complexity of emotion that O' Donohue refers to in his book, To Bless the Space Between Us, about change being exciting, hopeful, frightful, joyful and uncertain.
Such change is one of my own making. It does however continue to demand "courage and also a sense of trust" in sharing something that at first felt so private and now is so completely public (open to scrutiny, praise, practical application). I guess this is part of the life of an author that gets more familiar with time.
So as I cross this threshold full of possibilities and promise - I invite you to consider what individual threshold you are facing? What is beckoning you forward? What do you wish to leave behind? Is it in your role as a parent, teacher, clinician, husband, wife, partner or other? It may be something very subtle or unmistakable - whatever it is I wish you fortitude and grace in courageously moving into the next best iteration of you.
Happy New Year!(And please enjoy a small excerpt from my upcoming book below).
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365 Perfect Things to Say to Your Kids
By Maureen Healy
Book Excerpt Below (first page of Introduction)Sayings
Whatever words we utter should be chosen with care for people will hear them and be influenced by them for good or ill.Buddha
Words have wounded us and healed our hearts. They have empowered us or dashed our dreams. Lives have been lost and saved over simple sayings. The power of words is impossible to fully understand, and no one is more influenced by words than a growing child.Children feel and experience this world so deeply. Listening to our words is a powerful part of their growing story. Every child begins to see him or her self through the words of an adult. It is such words that begin to shape a child's sense of worth, and often influences the path of their life.
Being able to harness the power of words, I believe, is an essential component of positive parenting. It is parenting with awareness. Every word spoken to your child has the awesome ability to pave a positive pathway in his or her brain. Words or sayings needn't be perfect but ideally are spoken with great enthusiasm, meaning and repetition so they become a true force for good.
And since children are developing at such an incredibly rapid pace - every word counts!
Consider Austin, age 3, who still talks to me about his friend calling him stupid. It rocked him to his core. Or Amy, age 6, who smiled ear-to-ear when her mother praised her painted plate. It fully encouraged Amy's creativity! Or Kai, age 11, who cried after his father said, "Guess, we don't have Picasso here!" His Dad surely didn't intend to squelch the boy's lifelong creativity, but those weren't the right words.
Saying the right words isn't always easy. It takes a bit of awareness. It doesn't necessarily come naturally. The good news is that everyone can learn how to use words as powerful tools to propel their child's best life.
© Copyright by Maureen Healy, authorBook Video
http://www.amazon.com/Maureen-Healy/e/B0030LF83A/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0
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