Michael Meade’s New Year Message
Meade’s Facebook page is called Mosaic Voices, and through this online resource he recently shared the following New Year message, one that I find to be both insightful and hopeful. Perhaps you will too. Happy New Year!
Although there can be no quick fix for all that troubles the world at this time, the aim of traditional New Year rites was to end the reign of the old year in order to begin everything anew. The idea was to follow the course of nature in which the world descends into darkness before the light and the energy of life begins to return.
The old idea was not simply the turning over of a calendar, but the understanding that a capacity for transformation and regeneration resides at the heart of nature, at the center of the cosmos and in the heart of humanity as well. The point was not to be naive and deny problems that must be faced, but to return to the origins of creation and symbolically participate in the capacity of life to renew itself.
For, small and insignificant as we may increasingly feel, we carry within our souls a spark that is connected to the galaxies and to the origins of creation. On one hand we are time bound, on the other we are secretly tied to eternal things that transcend the limits of time and place. By symbolically participating in the dissolution of time, ancient people were temporarily delivered from their faults and failings and had their original life potentials restored.
Although this primordial sense of rejuvenation and renewal does not remove suffering or injustice from the world, it becomes more important if we are to avoid overwhelm and navigate the chaotic and exhausting times in which we live.
We live amidst a shattering of paradigms that radically alter familiar patterns in both nature and culture. As the future of the Earth itself becomes increasingly uncertain, the search for genuine knowledge begins with accepting the sense that we truly do not know what the New Year might bring. To find the kinds of insight and wisdom we most need, we must accept the condition of “not knowing” that parallels the uncertainty and darkness that appear before creation occurs.
Inside all stuck situations there is a deep vulnerability that can lead to a release of unexpected imagination and inspired ideas. In Zen Buddhist traditions the practice of shoshin translates as “beginner’s mind.” Shoshin begins where received ideas and accepted patterns are left behind as an innate capacity to awaken from within begins with “not knowing.” The open and humble attitude of a beginner makes us less likely to simply repeat old patterns of behavior.
While those who claim to be able to solve the complex problems we face may claim dogmatic certainty, the openness of the beginner is more likely to find the true nature of a situation. A principle idea in shoshin is that in the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s mind there are few. Thus, beginner’s mind offers a particular kind of wisdom based upon a willingness to be at the edge where life remains open to many possibilities and unrealized potentials.
In keeping with the sense of many possibilities, the ancient term for beginner’s mind has more than one meaning. Shoshin can also mean something or someone that conveys “genuine truth.” Thus, it can refer to a work of art or a person that is genuine and not a fake or an imitation. When we draw from the root of our deeper self, we become more authentic and able to act in alignment with the inner spirit and the genuine aim of our souls.
As a practice, beginner’s mind can also involve the sense of forgiveness. For only when we forgive ourselves for mistakes and misdeeds can we let go of the ties that bind us and be released from the need to repeat the mistakes of the past. In that sense, not knowing, being open to change and forgiving ourselves and others turn out to be key ingredients in seeking to rejuvenate, start anew and be able to imagine and contribute to a better world.
Something ancient and knowing is trying to catch up to us and being fully present when a moment in time breaks open to unseen possibilities depends upon practices like beginner’s mind that help us be authentic and original and able to start anew. In being more open and forgiving we become more able to unlock untapped capacities for creativity, flexibility, and resilience.
In the open moments of life we become connected to the heart of nature again and can sense what the ancients meant in saying that all of life is sacred; and that can be a grace in the world and at the edge of every moment.
We at Mosaic wish for you and for all of us, that we might allow ourselves to be touched by the eternal, be blessed by the sacred and become more able to help with the healing of the Earth and each other.
– Michael Meade
December 29, 2024
December 29, 2024
See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• A Prayer for Today . . . and the Year Ahead (2024)
• The Light of This New Year’s Day (2023)
• Shining On . . . Into the New Year (2022)
• A Very Intentional First Day of the Year (2021)
• Carrying It On . . . Into the New Year (2021)
• A Blessing for the New Year (2020)
• A Blessing for the New Year (2019)
• Jane Goodall's New Year Message (2018)
• A New Year (2017)
• Move Us, Loving God
• Andrew Harvey on Radical, Divine Passion in Action
• For 2015, Three “Generous Promises”
• Threshold Musings (2013)
• A Song and Challenge for 2012
• In This Time of Liminal Space
• “Everything Is Saturated With the Sacred”
• Dispatches From the Periphery
For more of Michael Meade at The Wild Reed, see:
• Honoring the Inner Light of the Soul
• Michael Meade on “Slowing Downwards”
• The Way of Love and Healing
• Where Soul Would Have Us Go
• Soul: The Connecting Force in Life
Opening image: Artist unknown.
No comments:
Post a Comment