Passings

It's that time of year...the holidays. No matter your tradition, it is a time of remembrance of things past, where you are in the present, and the future yet to come. Scrooge was visited by those three ghosts, as are we each year at this time.

We look forward to January, and the new year, according to our calendar. January was named after the Roman god Janus, who had 2 opposite faces. One looked forward and the other behind. So it is with us, looking back at where we've been and where we think we are going.

This year there have been many passings in and around me, and I feel that's true of just about everyone I know. My mother died. Whatever your relationship is, or was, with your mother, her passing is an enormous milestone. Life changes forever. It changes in ways you can't begin to imagine or comprehend until it happens. It's the big things, yes, like celebrating your first Thanksgiving without her, but really, it is more about the little things.

You are caught unawares many times during the day, transported back to moments in another time and another life, perhaps by a smell or a sound. Something that reminds you of her and all the things that are not about her, even, can send you off in a spiral of memories.

Sometimes the passing of a person in your life is the mourning of what never was, more than what it was. When my father passed away several years ago, I found that I was mourning the relationship I did not have with him. And, I suppose, in doing that I was mourning the one I did have with him. I never really knew him. He was mostly physically absent in my life so he felt like more or less a stranger around whom I had lots of emotional issues.

My mother had an enormous physical presence in my life, but now I am thinking about the emotional vacuum we occupied for much of the time. Who am I, now that I am no longer anyone's child?

I have 2 friends whose mothers also passed away this year. And someone whose father passed away. And several others whose mothers died.

There were unusual passings in my barn this year, too. Unexpected death took the lives of several horses -- the kind of thing that might happen once in a lifetime, happened with some frequency this year.

Species of plants and animals are disappearing from the planet. Maybe the rocks themselves are, too, if anyone is noticing.

It all takes a toll on a person, of course. You find yourself reeling with shock and wondering how much more you can take. This stuff is hard. But you get up in the morning and make sense of your day and do what you do. Or, you try to make sense of your day, anyway.

Sometimes, not much makes sense. I've been thinking lately that the only thing that makes sense to me is being in nature, and/or with my animals. They are not thinking about what happened yesterday, or what will happen tomorrow. They live in the present.

It's hard for us humans to do that. We love to revisit old pains and sorrows and disappointments and regrets, as well as the "good stuff." We sit and fret and worry about the future, and all worry is, as I read somewhere, is putting fear into the future. Don't do that.

These times we now occupy are particularly chaotic, I feel. Leaders and figures of authority are showing us they don't know how to lead and lack any authority save what we give them. They tell us what to do and how to live and we find they are hypocritical about their own lives, and sometimes criminal. We've found that truth and trust are in short supply.

Institutions that have been our safety nets for years are in disarray and are crumbling. All around us the world as we know it is disappearing. "Oh no!" say some. It is just another phase of civilization, and it will straighten itself out again, returning us to "normal." Whatever that is, or was, right? How civilized are we, anyway?

But should it? Are we at a point in our growth as human beings that we are being asked to release what no longer works? Are we being asked to release what does not work for us as individuals and as civilizations? Is it time to start over?

What that means is different to each of us. Releasing the old makes way for the new. If you are in the process of releasing, letting go of what no longer serves you and your spirit, with what are you replacing it?

These are highly creative times. Being forced out of old jobs, old structures and old ways of living are making us get creative about our choices. If your world becomes a blank slate, what pictures are you drawing on it?

Intentions count. Working with Autumn, I find that intentions give focus and focus gives meaning. It brings order out of chaos. Working and playing with her does not permit me to be thinking about yesterday or worrying about tomorrow. I must stay focused or bad things start to happen.

There is a maxim that you are always training your horse, any time you spend with it. You are either training it in a positive way or you are training it not so positively, as in teaching it to do things you do not want. What behavior do you reward? Is that bribe sometimes a reward for unwanted behavior?

Trying to apply that training to myself is not so easy -- and it's not easy with her, to begin with! It takes a long time to undo undesirable behavior, so it is a lot easier to do it right the first time.

I think we are at a cosmic time of starting over, being given a chance to do it right the first time. A lot is passing away: people, institutions, ideas, beliefs, habits, animals. With what are we filling these empty spaces?

The feeling of loss is enormous right now. Many of us have lost much, while others seemingly have escaped it. Appearances are deceiving, however, and don't get into comparing your losses with someone else's. Judgement ends up being pretty hard on the judge, I believe.

Community is the solution. Sometimes, when the leaders get out of the way, people have a gift for finding their own community and making it work. Perhaps we've relied too long on others solving our problems for us, or at too great a distance. Maybe this is a time when we are being asked to look deep within ourselves for what we need and desire to be better people.

Communities aren't necessarily about where you live, but about with whom you interact and support and share ideas. Taking responsibility for ourselves builds strong communities, so that we can help those who need help, and be helped when we need help.

Passings cause reflections and out of reflections come, hopefully, new paths. If we create with joy and focus our intentions to do just that, that's where we'll go.

I have lots of questions...way more than I have answers. Think I'll go to the barn.