The Final Breath

New Year’s eve is upon us.  In many ways, it’s a day like any other.  It is another stitch in the fabric of our lives.  What makes today so significant isn’t that number on the calendar.  It’s the way that it makes us stop and think, the way it reminds us to look up from the counting of threads and take good a look at what design we’ve been stitching.  This night is a brief moment in time where the world, almost at once, finally pauses to catch their breath.  And during this brief pause, everyone shakes off the fogginess and looks out upon the fabric that spreads behind, before, and all around us.  We take this rare opportunity to appreciate the elaborate tapestry that has unfolded as a result of our many different weaves coming together.

This is a time of reorientation.

Tonight we stand along the shoreline of our own consciousness and we watch as the sun sets on the year that stretches behind us.  We gaze at the empty sky that this setting sun leaves behind.  We bid that now empty space a final farewell as it slowly dwindles from view with the fading light.  And in those last moments of remaining light, as the past year begins to wane, dropping ever lower on the horizon, we release our pains, we forgive our failures, and we inwardly smile in remembrance of the beauties, the loves, and the joys.

Just before that light completely disappears, we breathe out the last of what was, what could have been, and what never was.  For the briefest and most surreal of moments, we stand breathless – all has been released but no breath has yet taken its place.

And then we inhale.  All together.  We take in the breath of new life, of new possibilities, of new hopes and dreams.  The new year breaks.

For a precious little stretch of time, at once fleeting and eternal, we simultaneously experience what it is to be here and to live now.  And that’s what makes this night so very special.  For this one night, everyone comes together to recognize the power of NOW.  We all wipe the sleep from our eyes and we see clearly.  We see how all of the beauty we crave is right here, and how everything is happening right now.  All together we awaken from the illusions of yesterday and tomorrow, and for a moment we are alive with the energy of being awake today.

And then we dance.  We sing and we celebrate.  We kiss.  We rejoice because we remember that this is where the real magic happens, in the eternal present moment.

As we watch the sun set tonight and we exhale all that has gone away, and as we glimpse the first rays of the coming dawn and we prepare to inhale the first breath of our new year, let’s remember what we’re really celebrating.  Let’s remember that it’s not the falling of a burned out sun, nor is it the rising of a new ball of flame that incites our passions on this night.  It’s the realization that we are alive, we are in this moment, we exist here and now – that the magic of New Year’s is truly the magic of every moment, of every breath, of every sunrise and sunset.

And all we ever need to reignite that same thunder and lightning that erupts around us in so many forms tonight is to remember what tonight we are so blessed to see.  That yesterday is gone, that tomorrow is unknown, but that no matter what we will always have the possibility of today.

Copyright 2015 Cristen Rodgers