Year’s End – A New Beginning

 

JOURNAL

Year’s End – A New Beginning

Bill Barksdale, Columnist

Something about the year’s end makes one take stock of all that happened in the year just ended, and muse about what’s ahead.  Perhaps it’s the fact that one is inside more on these shortest of days around the Winter Solstice.  I think of this time of year as the architype of the feminine, from my studies of Jungian psychology.  The internal.  The old passes away in order to prepare for the rebirth of spring. 

I was grateful for the big rainstorms recently.  Our drought isn’t over yet and the forest, not to mention our reservoirs, need a long drink.  The ground geology of much our area is called the Franciscan formation.  This geology, formed as marine sediments from 20 million to 140 million years ago were compacted at the bottom of ancient oceans then folded from movement of the Earth’s crust over time, from layers into mountains and pockets that hold water.

The sediments of compacted clay called shale, sandstone which is basically sand that has cemented, and chert which is sedimentary silica – are hard layers that hold the water in pockets or allow it to flow on top of those layers.  There are other geologic formations as well, too much to cover here.  The point is, these formations are replenished each year by rain water which is what our wells and springs tap in to.  In a good year, topped off with snow pack that gradually releases water over a longer period.

If a pocket of water is completely encased in a hard formation, like a balloon, the water will eventually be used up and the well will go dry permanently.  If the pocket is open to the surface, like a bowl, it will be replenished with the rain.  The Little Lake Valley has a different type of geology, but all depends on rain, nature’s great cyclic process for recycling and distributing water. 

Of course, too much rain at once is a problem that causes flooding and landslides.  In our region there are areas of blue clay.  When clay gets saturated is becomes slippery, like oil.  In some hilly areas with heavy concentrations of clay that gets saturated, the land slips.  There are local areas where house foundations have cracked and houses have even slipped or had a landslide because of saturated clay geology.  

In times of drought we must conserve & recycle water, and use it wisely.  Flood irrigation is a wasteful use of water practiced in a now bygone era.  Now we must find ways to slow the runoff of our precious rainwater so that it permeates into the ground.  We must capture some of that rain in aquafers, reservoirs, wells and storage tanks to use during our dry, hot season while also letting enough flow for our precious fish to survive.  Conservation of water is essential.  Without it there is no life.

Just as in the womb, water is the cradle of life.  We must share it.  Water belongs to all life on Earth.  Private ownership of large quantities of Earth’s water is a violation of Nature’s plan.  We must find crops in our drought-prone area that provide what we need for our nourishment and also use less water.  Israel has studied water conservation methods for many years.  We would be wise to borrow their research and apply it here.  They’ve learned to cultivate deserts.

Such are my thoughts as the year comes to an end.  For me a connection with the spiritual nature of nature itself is the very essence of survival.  Ceremony, science, friendships, doing unto others as you would have others do unto you, kindness , the connectedness of humans & nature – all combine to create and maintain quality of life and our precious planet itself. 

As was said so profoundly true in the movie Jurassic World Dominion “We’re part of a fragile system made up of all living things” including our dynamic planet. 

Moving on - with gratitude in this new year, I’ve never been one to make New Year resolutions but this year it seems appropriate for me.  The great 19^th century American poet & essayist Walt Whitman once wrote “I exist as I am, that is enough.”  These words of wisdom seem to have a special vibrancy for me as this year begins, to learn to trust my inner wisdom.

The year 2022 had some great challenges for me and I felt my life-force kind of low.  I allowed Covid, politics, war, “the news” and a disappointing project that never came to fruition, as well as illness and a difficult plane trip all combined to drag me down.  I felt rundown. 

I realize that I can choose not to marinate in that dark place.  After all, I choose how I feel about anything.  We each choose.  Challenges and difficulties happen but how I feel about myself or the world is my choice.  I don’t have to be wrecked flotsam floating on the ocean of life’s many possibilities. 

As I seek a more satisfying direction for my life, I must begin with myself.  It’s easy to lose sight of the fact that we each choose to honor ourselves as individuals, or allow some institution to tell us our worth and what we “should be”.  We are taught and pressured from an early age to believe that those outside voices should tell us what to trust instead of our own quiet intuitive inner wisdom. 

Those who teach one to either take control of their own life direction, or be a follower - know that repetition, sometimes often in the form of a mantra, a repeated self-suggestion, is one of the most effective ways to teach oneself change.  Religion, political parties, and goodness knows advertising, are all experts at trying to influence how we think about ourselves and the world.  I call this corporate vampirism. 

These social institutions have many tools to convince us to ignore our own inner knowingness of truth, and follow them.  Among the tools they use quite effectively are fear, shame, guilt, self-doubt, social ostracism, feeling inferior, tribalism and desire – all cemented into our brains by repetition.  The tool of the internet has made it even easier for these institutions to reach further with their often hurtful influences and suggestions through “social media”. 

Social media is a new science of mass control cleverly disguised as “just keeping in touch with loved ones” or “keeping informed”.  Of course social media and the internet actually do provide these benefits but also insidiously insert a very real and often harmful brand of mind control over millions, even billions of people.  Why?  Because controlling what you think benefits a few, not necessarily you. 

I’ve decided to take back control of my life and thoughts by repeating better mantras, through repetition.   Taboo subjects - as we’ve been taught - such as “I love myself”, “I exist as I am that is enough”, “choose kindness” – and from writer Anita Moorjani “God is not a being. God is a state of being” and I add to this “and that state of being is Love”. 

“And in the end, the Love you take is equal to the Love you make.” - Paul McCartney.

Happy New Year 2023!