Circles, Cycles, Seasons

I'm thinking about circles today - circles, cycles, seasons, spinning around and around - today is a good day for such thinking. Recently I had lunch with a good friend and we were discussing depression and anxiety. I take Lexapro to help me with both with good results. He posited that one way of thinking about the two is to associate depression with obsessing over the past and anxiety with obsessing over the future. Now this isn't necessarily a complete way of understanding these two, but it's a good start for pondering today and the expectations we place on New Year's Eve/Day. As someone who also has a tendency towards obsessing, I have worked hard to live in the moment. One of my favorite songs from Rent - "There's only us, there's only this, forget regret or life is yours to miss, no other road, no other way, no day but today." I know so many people who spend most of their time replaying the past and/or worrying about the future - they are missing out on what is happening in the now - and the now is all that is real.

So why circles? Our European-American cultural tradition has always emphasized a linear understanding of time - like one big ruler that we walk along marking out minutes, hours, days, years. How many of you wear watches? I stopped wearing watches because they enabled the measuring instinct. If you move through your day thinking about the next hour, the next destination, the next project...I gave up the watch. When I am delayed in traffic, when a bus or train is late, when I catch myself waiting for the future - I stop and look around and experience the moment. Native cultures thought of time in terms of cycles and circles and those seasons of change revolve around today - around the now. The other time "direction" we obsess about - the past - encourages us to hoard and save - know anyone who takes hundreds of photos of everything all the time? It's an attempt to grab and hold onto yesterday - but yesterday eludes us - the more time you spend saving, documenting, photographing - once again, the less time you are really being in the now - savoring the moment. I love having mementos of the past, they help keep things in my memory banks so I can remember and cherish what has gone before - but you still have to let it go. Children will grow up, loved ones will die, our situations will change - it will happen and all the saving and collecting in the world won't stop that. For that reason I gave up owning a camera, I went through old boxes of photos and only kept the ones that had images of people I loved - all those panoramic shots we take on vacation - over the years they have no meaning. So why these thoughts today? Today is the day we all make "resolutions" - we take stock, we look back and we look forward. This is a day for CHANGE - or so we think. Most resolutions don't last much past February. The wonderful thing about circles, cycles, seasons revolving around and around is that any day can be about change. Live in the now - change your shirt if you don't like what you're wearing-I won't have a drink today--Today I am going for a walk--one day at a time. Too much focus on resolutions drifts into obsessing over the past and future. So on this day, in reality just another 24 hour period on the 365 day wheel - I will have a wonderful time with the animals and with my friends, Georgie and Mary. There's another song (I can't remember the title or artist), "If you can't be with the one you love, honey, love the one you're with." The sentiments I have discussed are there in that snippet of lyric. Peace and love be yours always on this day and every day and Happy New Year!