Not the Queen's speech, a new years greeting!

It is New Years eve and I sit here alone in my home in Sweden.
I have chosen to be alone this evening. I just returned from northern Norway yesterday and traveled all day to come home. Nice to land in the comfort of a home.

I like New Years eve; it's a chance to look back at a year that has gone and not just think of it as a year, but as a life. For all I know, this could be the last evening of my life, and the ritual of new years accentuates that feeling of parting with what has been and receiving something new. A new year.
In reality a year doesn't end in an evening, like we don't age when we have birthdays, the year and our lives are continually ending and beginning.

To contemplate the ending of a year or of a day or of any given moment is also to think of the effects that our actions have on our own lives and on the interconnected matrix of this world. And we can look back with kindness and what Pema Chödrön calls positive shame. A sense of honestly looking at the havoc we create sometimes through our deeply rooted patterns, our avoidances, all the things we said or did, we maybe shouldn't have said or done, and all the things we didn't say or do, we maybe should have.

Unsolved conflicts, bitterness, even hate, envy, jealousy. All those things that steer and control us.
And we can consider whether we want those patterns to be stronger or weaker in the future?

We could also consider that working with these patterns is a narrow path and not easy. So to remember to be gentle and kind.

I like to think: Am I living the life I want to live? Am I being my best me? Not to judge or put down, but to honestly consider if there is anything in my life that I can change, so I don't just stay stuck in habitual patterns, because it is the easiest thing to do.
Live like your hair is on fire; I think it's a zen description of a spiritual life.
How does one live like ones hair is on fire?
No time to loose. No time to waste. Nothing to fear.

Outside the booms from fireworks. I wish for inner fireworks. Inner transformation and intense light, that will light up the shadowy parts of my inner life. All the places I can't see myself. May I be wiser and kinder and more patient in the new year. May you all be wiser and kinder, gentler and more patient.

I just by accident deleted the last part of what I wrote ... and it makes me think of the immediacy of communication in this age and day.
When I reflect on my life spent and the life that lies ahead, I am not just thinking on a personal level, but our interconnected lives on this planet, that seems smaller and smaller and indeed has more and more people and less and less animalspecies.
Our actions and non-actions have an immediate impact on the world that we are part of, not separate, and because communication is so easy these days, we can choose wisely how and what we communicate about. Although it also seems that a lot of people want to talk, less want to listen.

We have a responsibility: Never before has any animal species had so much power over this planet, so how do we want to use that power? To continue the path of consumerism that has seduced us all today or take a step back and remember that we have a choice.

So one thing that comes to mind as we second by second are getting closer to a formal ending of the year is to spend our money and our time wisely. To give wisely back to the world, that has given us so much. When we donate (money or time) to environment or to education or to spirituality, we are really not giving something that is ours to someone or something outside ourselves. We are giving back what already belongs to the world. So in a way, we are given back to ourselves.

Being greedy is the ultimate poverty. If you can give from the heart, you are always rich.

So like I said, this is not the queens new years speach, and it will probably find you well into the new year, so get on with it! Live like your hair is on fire :-)

Thank you to all of you who are in my heart for this time spent together. Who knows when our time on earth is over. Who knows...

And last a quote from William Blake:

To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand 
And Eternity in an hour.

from a long poem called Auguries of Innocence

Happy New Year