The End of an Era

Ring the bells that still can ring

Forget your perfect offering

There is a crack, a crack in everything

That’s how the light gets in.

                                                   Leonard Cohen  

We are living at the end of an era. All facets of life are changing, crumbling really.  The pandemic was just big enough, a forced “time out,” to get humanity’s attention, finally. 

When I read the phrase “get back to normal” in the press, I wonder what that means.  What about an organism that destroys its habitat, poisoning itself and everything around it in the process, is normal? Human beings have lived on this planet for approximately 300,000 years and yet in the last 300 or so, we have managed to create an existence based on a stunning lack of harmony amongst humanity and between humanity and the other-than-human world. 

We have lost our relationship. We have forgotten that we are interdependent and that someone else’s struggles are, in fact, our struggles. And if humanity could remember that the Earth herself is a living being, deserving of respect and reverence as the provider of everything we have, then She too would be included. This is a natural law. It just is. Like the sky is blue, the sun rises and sets, the moon cycle is 28 days, and tides go in and out. 

We are all familiar with this image. We call it a Yin Yang symbol. It is 太极兩儀图, the Taiji Tu . We think of the Taiji Tu as a Chinese symbol, but this image has also been found in ancient European artifacts. It is a deeply profound image describing duality and the nature of constant cyclical change.

Very simply, we can use the example of the seasons. Starting at the bottom (#1), we see that the black (Yin) part is at its largest with the tiniest tail of the white (Yang) in it. This is the winter solstice, around December 21st. The coldest, darkest, most still, most down and in, most Yin moment (and relatively least Yang moment) of the year. Here we see the white circle in the field of black, indicating that the Yang is being stored, to be ready for its time of increase.

Moving in a clockwise direction (toward #2), we can see the white growing (and the black shrinking, relatively) as we move up on the left. In February, we start to have enough Yang energy that the birds start singing and the sun starts feeling warm. The #2 is the spring equinox, in the third week of March. Halfway between the most Yin and most Yang, with the Yang on the rise. As the Yang rises, so does the sap in the trees and the warmth of the sun, new growth emerges from resting underground.

Continuing to the top (#3) the Yang is increasing until its apex at the summer solstice (June 21st), the warmest, brightest, most active, most up and out, most Yang moment (and relatively least Yin moment) of the year. The sun is at its highest point in the sky. Here we see the black circle in the field of white, indicating that the Yin is being stored, to be ready for its time of increase.

Then the Yin starts building again as we come around and start heading toward #4.  By the time we are at the end of August, we can see and feel the changes in light, the plants have lost their vigor and are looking tired, our attention turns to getting ready for winter. At #4, we are at the autumnal equinox, around September 21st. The yang energy is descending back to the roots, to be stored so that when it is time, the cycle can start again. 

We see these cycles of life everywhere, in microcosm if the life of an individual cell or the macrocosm of the life span of a person.  In the microcosm of our small towns and the macrocosms of our nation, planet, and universe. 

In the lifecycle of our national and global society, currently we are somewhere between the numbers 4 and 1. The time in November when it is dark and cold, and the leaves are off the trees and we are left with the barest structure.  We have a ways to go before we start to feel the Yang energy with its light and new growth returning.  It will, but we are not there yet.

As we watch our societal and political structures crumbling, feel impotent to do anything about the unfolding climate disaster, and try to rebuild our daily lives in the wake of the pandemic, what are those structures, the bare trees, that we need to care for, store, if you will, for the moment when we turn the corner and the Yang, carrying new life, returns to build a global society that is sustainable?  What do we choose to carry with us (to store) while we wait in the dark?

So many of the people I have spoken with recently are taking a moment to consider this question. They have realized that the forced time out of the pandemic has had its benefits. More time with family, more time to be in nature, a slower pace creating space to reevaluate what is most important to us. To discover the structures that are been revealed, like the bare trees in November. We are in a unique moment in history to clearly see what about our lives we most cherish. If we think about our former activities and commitments like the canned bounty of last year’s garden stored and now packing the pantry shelves, we can consider which jars to we want to take down, open and partake of. Which are appealing and nourishing, and which have gone bad and must be thrown out?

Those bare trees in November are the structures on which humanity has hung countless civilizations throughout the ages. They are those ineffable qualities that make us human no matter the time or culture. Shared, seasonal meals with friends and family, time in Nature to feel the joy of seeing the first snow drops, planting a garden, and connecting with the soil, taking a walk focusing on your breath with the awareness that your out-breath is the plant’s in-breath. Starting to feel your way into inter-connectedness.

We cannot go back to the way things were. Indeed, why would we want to? In this moment in time, we can instead nourish and care for those we cherish, both human and other-than-human. We can pay attention to the activities that feel restorative and those that feel draining. And we can know that we are storing the jewel colors of summer, like the jars on the pantry shelf, for when the time is right to bring them into the light.