A New Year and New Possibilities by Elektra Porzel
As the New Year dawns, most of us think of something that we want to change in our lives. Sometimes it’s some way of getting healthier or tackling a task that has been on our to-do list for a long time; maybe it’s to study a new skill or to stay connected with friends. With these New Year Wishes comes a list of things that we must stop doing and things that we must start doing. My response is always a bit of ‘ugh’ about the changing habits as well as the anticipation of succeeding in my new ‘positive’ activity. I don’t know about you, but the grumpiness of subtracting an old habit while I add a new habit always colors the new activities in gray.
Too many times, I have written about mental or emotional habits that contribute to our problems that generated our New Year’s Wishes list. I started just such an article for this newsletter and got really bummed out by it. I don’t want to think about the ‘ugh’ of getting rid of an old habit or even of all the ways that I have kept that unhelpful emotional or physical habit. While contemplating this writer’s block, I just said ‘Enough! With this focus on the negative, I will not put up with it!
So, I started to play with some life-enhancing activities or ways of being that would be fun for me. So maybe more dancing, laughing, imagining are going to be on my list! And yet there was surprisingly something more.
In a recent conversation with a friend, he was explaining how he was different than his siblings in that for his whole life there was a constant question that he had … ‘Why are we are? Why am I here? Those questions have driven his spiritual searching all of his adult life and I had to reply that those deep questions were also part of mine as well.
Then I remembered a book that we are discussing this year with the LOC team. Its chapters give me pause to focus on these deeper issues that give me the most joy in my life. So, here are some questions that are poised in each chapter. Maybe you too would like to take time to converse about each question – with others on the spiritual path…with us this spring. What Thoughts have you been thinking? What did you plant? What did you Harvest? How will we pass the Knowledge on to our Children? What do I have to Offer the World? What does it mean to the World that I am here? How will we make sure everyone is well? How will we live for another Eighty Thousand Years?
The book that these questions come from is The Book of Balance by Lucas Buchholz. It’s a sharing of Kogi Wisdom for a good Life and Thriving Earth. The Kogi are an indigenous people who live in the Sierra Nevada’s in South America. You could ponder these on your own; Or read the book; or Offer these questions into conversations with friends; or maybe even join us in discussion on one Saturday morning a month.
I feel so much more positive about the coming year just holding these larger spiritual questions in my heart for me to open up to this year! Yes, I will still do all those health etc to-do’s that are on my list of New Year’s Wishes AND the thought that I can settle into conversations with my friends (and maybe you) expands my heart and lets me play in the joy that these conversations will bring. No giving up…just opening up to and having something soul deeper this year!
If you are interested in joining us in conversation, you can register for the series or just one conversation at a time. Go to https://www.loc-institute.com/courses-events/ and register for whatever brings you joy!
