It’s in the ends of things that new beginnings are found.  In our human tendency to hold on to what was good, we can fail to appreciate the need to let go of what served us- what supported traveling our path in life, and even what helped us find the path- in order to open anew to where our soul is asking us to travel now.  In the turbulent, incoherent and at times volatile collective energies of the United States in which we’re living, it’s becoming more clear that things we’ve taken for granted, and things with which we and our recent ancestors were familiar, are ending. Seasons, weather cycles, bird migrations, the timing of blooms, even a benign Earth may no longer be reliable.  Institutions of all kinds functioning to serve the greater good with integrity are becoming more scarce. The sense that there is a unifying story that holds the citizens of the U.S. in a sense of belonging has been shown to be inclusive only for certain members, and the frustrations and reactions of those qualifying members are signs that the increasing demands from minorities for the nation to live up to its ideals with actions and not only in words will hold everyone in a greater tension until violence erupts or a new way is found.

It was just last month that I acknowledged the mythologist and scholar Michael Meade and the story he tells of the old woman in the cave, which comes from the White Mountain Apache who have lived in Arizona for thousands of years.  I suggest you read some of Meade’s books and find him through numerous online resources, including his regular podcast called “Living Myth” through which he connects folktales and stories from around the world which have survived for centuries with current events which indicate the unraveling of nature and culture.  What I love about the story of the old woman is the hope it gives in times of despair and the ends of things. It teaches that there is a hidden wisdom available to all of us when we learn how to go within to search for it, and that there is no end to the world, but only the ends of things we have known and lived, and the ends of cycles.  The way to find this hope is to pick up the loose end of something in your own life, and to begin weaving anew. Perhaps you can look at something broken in the world around you, or in your own life, and begin to heal that by making a first attempt to create what it is you would like to see, feel and experience. You may find a teacher to help you, but don’t make that the priority if it delays your beginning.  Start from where you are with what you have, and know that the crucial essence is not in what you or anyone else thinks of what you create, but that you are moving into creation. For it is the acts of creation that have always kept the world from ending.