It's an overcast, grey, dismal, wet and dreary Saturday morning here today. It's raining outside and it's been steadily coming down for hours.
It's so dark in here I had to turn on my living room light. It's as though the sun did not even rise this morning.
This is the last day of 2022. And what a way to end this dramatic, up and down, roll-a-coaster of a year. You might even imagine this as a little joke from Mother Nature herself. It looks like she's put a dark, wet, cold spot at the tail end of our 365 sequential days of this year.
Period and full stop. This year of 2022 is done, finished and complete!
I hope and pray that better days wait for us up ahead. I hope a bright new day dawns tomorrow morning bringing sunshine, brightness, hope and peace to our world.
Please help me, dear reader. Help me to envision and materialize this hope and desire into existence. And I thank you in advance for doing so.
Cycles and seasons appear to rule our human lives and destinies. It's as if the Gregorian calendar was intended as a divine roadmap and timeline which was designed, established and laid down for us to follow religiously. And so we have and continue to do so.
Speaking of seasons, I'm listening to some sweet Christmas music coming from my radio. And again, sadly, this is the last of it for this cycle. Tomorrow it will be gone. So will be our Christmas trees, cards and decorations, off and gone to the landfill. Goodbye to Jingle Bells, joy, cheer and jolly old St. Nick until he comes around again next year.
So we continue to travel along this endless pathway of time which was set out for us long ago. We have January, February and March, ect, ect. We register, stamp and record the activities of each passing day. Then we file them away and we allow them to slip off into the past.
And what is the past but a great nebulous oblivion where everything eventually goes to dissolve and dematerialize. It's a bit like our landfill stuffed with miscellaneous discarded plastic wrappers, tin cans, old newspapers and forgotten memories.
Here now, as a society, in this new unit of time, we look for the first baby born into the new year of 2023. He or she is to be our special symbol of hope, light and good fortune for our future.
Time marches on.
I'm at the twilight of this lifetime myself. Perhaps this helps me in a way to view our vast landscape of the past, present and future. It's been a dramatic and adventurous experience and there's always something new and special to be excited about.
You could call it the joy and thrill of living I suppose. To me, life is to be created, lived and expanded. And if you don't create it with your hopes and dreams, then life can be dull indeed.
I've witnessed many old friends grow tired and weary from their pains, losses and tragedies, those speed bumps on their roadway. And I've watched them slowly check out.
They gradually fade away, off into oblivion. But in reality, they have softly slipped through the veil which divides this life from the next. And, before long, our memory of their being with us also fades. After a while their names are rarely mentioned by friends, family and community.
So yesterday's old coffee grounds, last week's newspaper along with the leaves of Autumn scattered in the wind; they're all gone.
But every great once in a while I'm very pleasantly surprised. Someone I know and care for who is approaching the end of the line, actually changes his or her mind and decides to live.
The light returns to their eyes. Their body increases in strength and health. They get up and walk!
Just like the first new born baby in 2023, it's the miracle of life.
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