New Beginning

As usual, there is no clear line of “beginning” - like the edges of objects that we imagine but are nothing more than a shift of light, or tone, in a colored image, -- like the “moment of dawn” that is instead a gradual awareness of a slow shift in light -- the start of something emerges incrementally from the overall landscape of our lives. For me, this move and shift of job tasks has actually coalesced slowly, over time, as one thing after another fell apart in my life; as I found “the usual” to be like a death sentence and didn’t know why. Now, after an incredibly painful two years, I find some clarity and some deep response inside to my decision to settle in the country, work from home and live as frugally as possible. It’s amazing how many strands go into weaving this pathway: the environment -- political, economic and physical; my own aging and limitations; relationships that have outlived their vibrancy and withered before my eyes; and some inner push that -- I see now -- has been urging me all my life. There are moments when I wonder if this is all ephemeral, a delusion, and moments when I wonder how I could have missed this clear calling for so long. Naturally, this leads me to feeling fairly schizoid; how can one person have two such clear and mutually exclusive points of view?? But perhaps that’s a cultural bias: we are trained to believe that “I” am one/single and as such would have one point of view, subject to changes, yes, but only one real way of seeing things. Anyone who struggles with really split POVs are referred to therapy. Yet now it’s starting to seem more natural that there is always a push-pull, a light/dark rhythm to the way we see and live life. Dynamic balance seems to demand that we move back and forth, ever correcting our excesses. How else to do that but by holding two points of view and comparing/contrasting? For some, I think this comes more as feelings and sensations, for me it’s definitely ideas and concepts. In any case, the balance has tipped and I am moving forward with another chapter in my life; one that I hope will allow me more time to observe, to think and to write.