Threads of Hope
So far it looks like 2021 didn’t get the message that it was a NEW YEAR. As some have said, 2021 came around and told 2020, “Hold my beer.”
After, shall we say, an unprecedented year, many imagined that along with turning the page on our calendars we could move forward individually and collectively on a new path, that a fresh year meant a fresh start where things would be different.
Perhaps the promise of a new year is just a stand-in for what we really want: hope.
Speaking about hope in dark times may seem pollyanna-ish (though this is the Slice of Sunshine newsletter). But having hope is not the same as wishing* which may evoke magic wands and birthday candles. Having hope does not mean denying the existence of grief, outrage, injustice or fear.
Hope is not a pair of rose-colored glasses, nor a sprinkling of fairy dust.
Hope is active. As with many words that are both nouns and verbs, hope is something we can have AND something we can do.
Hope is fuel. It provides us with a reason to keep going. In its earliest usages it was intended to mean “confidence in the future”—without that confidence what becomes of us?
Hope is a driving force for humanity. In times that we feel bereft, we must continue to move towards higher expressions of ourselves. This includes holding on to hope. Not as a panacea, but as a thread that ties us together.
Human to human. Human to world. Human to future.
*I love wishes too and wish on lots of things: eyelashes, 11:11, shooting stars…leave room for magic, too ?
Try it!
Infinite New Beginnings
A new year is an opportunity to create space for hope because it is framed as a new beginning. But it is not the only one. It is often said in meditation that every day, every moment—every breath—is an opportunity to begin again.
Notice as you are reading these words that the moment you are in right now is its own new beginning. And now this one. And this one again. How else can you apply this frame? How many new beginnings actually exist in a single day?
(other) Smart People
We were never perfect.
Yet, the journey we make together is perfect on this earth who was once a star and made the same mistakes as humans.
We might make them again, she said.
Crucial to finding the way is this: there is no beginning or end.
You must make your own map.
-Excerpt from A Map to the Next World by Joy Harjo
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