Strength, Courage & Transformation

Someone once told me spiritual energies are heightened toward the end of the year. The statement caused me to wonder why that might be? If I am to believe this phenomenon, I couldn’t imagine why our sense of spirituality might be more pronounced in December than in April. Still, year-after-year I wondered, with the question resurfacing in my head somewhere between Halloween and Thanksgiving. And certainly, if there were any truth to the idea, perhaps it explained the choice of December 25^th as the day to celebrate Christmas. This is not believed to be the actual birth date of Jesus Christ, yet it was picked as the time to celebrate his appearance in our lives. If it is an arbitrary date, might it have been chosen to correspond with a period of time in which we are most spiritually receptive?

For at least five years, I have thought of these concepts every holiday season. Most of the time, I was skeptical, suspecting more than anything else that it was just marketing. In October, the Halloween frenzy begins with children’s costumes and unheard of quantities of candy being bought and sold. In November, Thanksgiving appears and turkeys across the land meet their untimely demise. And then Christmas and New Year’s roll around to top it all off. This year, I have paid attention and the answer to my question appeared to me in nature. Yes, spiritual energies are heightened at the end of each year, and it has nothing to do with marketing (except that marketers have been brilliant to take advantage of buyers when they are vulnerable).

Oftentimes, we enjoy viewing ourselves as masters of our destiny, but this is not entirely true. Without exception, we are born into nature as puzzle pieces. To see ourselves as living outside of this system is not only a disservice, it is a denial of reality. Each winter, adjustments are made all around us. Birds fly south. Bears retreat into seclusion to hibernate in their own form of silent meditation. Trees shed their leaves stripping down to their barest of essentials. In places of bitter cold, snow blankets the land and ice covers the water and all of this is in preparation for rebirth. When the period is over, the birds return to lay eggs and raise their young. Bears emerge from their caves as if being re-delivered from the womb and trees and plants reinvent themselves with completely new configurations of flowers and leaves. All of the above are physical queues to remind us of our own spiritual evolution.

At the end of the year, if we are to grow and evolve, we must do as nature does, stripping down to the barest essentials of who we are spiritually. This is not easy work, but it is the right time to ponder and reflect on who we are and how we wish to be. Once we’ve crossed through the bridge of winter, we can re-emerge on the other side, reinvented with new leaves and flowers of who we are. And while each of us is capable of metamorphosis at any given place or time, we are more naturally predisposed (there goes nature again) to it at year-end when spiritual energies are heightened.

This year, as 2010 is ushered in, I’d like to wish all of you the happiest of new years and may your metamorphosis be one that brings you ever closer to your centers. Peace and blessings to you all!