New Year's Resolutions

The Solstice is a few days past and the calendar new year is a few days ahead. The earth keeps on turning, which seems like the same as always, but it is also ever changing, moving more like a helix than a circle. So while it may appear predictable, the view is different, sometimes by a little, sometimes by a lot.

It is a time for introspection and hope for the future.

Sometimes, hope gets trampled by despair. It is easy to be of the mindset that all is lost. With a strong history of New Year's resolutions that fall to wayside by mid February, it is easy to expect failure. But what if the resolution was a goal of activities that improved one's personal world and the world as a whole?

This year, I will plant a tree
This year, I will serve someone in need
This year, I will shake someone's hand
This year, I will pick flowers and put them in a vase
This year, I will bake a souffle
This year, I will clean the ...
This year, I will make dinner for a friend
This year, I will buy coffee for someone I have not met
This year, I will attend a celebration of a culture that is not my own
This year, I will walk in the woods
This year, I will dance in the rain
This year, I will feel mud between my toes
This year, I will listen to the ocean
This year, I will sing
This year, I will laugh
This year, I will cry with gratitude
This year, I will learn
This year, I will trust
This year, I will honor

This seems like a good place to begin.

Nurse Log Tattoo

 The nurse log represents my spiritual beliefs, those beliefs I feel in the center of myself and know them to be true.
  All organisms are connected. If life is allowed to just be and not interfered with, there is no birth and death as separate events, but a constant circle of degradation and renewal with each organism experiencing every stage of this circle at some level.  My brain, or societies brain, wants to see life as linear, but if I can let go of that, I can see life is more spherical and unending, but in a constant state of change.
 The idea goes beyond survival of the fittest, because what is the fittest today will be fodder for the next wave and still vital to the well being of the whole. And one is not better than the other as all are vital.
 If the collective exists, then the well-being of one affects the well-being of all, so it is self serving to honor every organism.  That cannot mean I cannot eat or should try to prevent the death of other organisms, but that the death of one organism is vital to the life of another and will be again and again.  It is to my benefit and the benefit of the collective to have a healthy eco-system and political peace.
I am not suggesting that the Borg is the optimal arrangement, but as my sister would say, "we all have our gifts" and it is important, I think, to recognize that. Separate, yet connected and without a hierarchy of status as status is constantly changing.
 And so it is my goal or my quest, to be ever mindful of the needs of others and of myself and that it is in our best interest to honor life in all its stages.