We’re nearing the Winter Solstice, the onset of winter and the darkest day of the year, the day before things go over the top (or hit bottom) and start all over again.  Not everything though. We have to reckon with change. We go in one direction then suddenly alter both our orientation and our purpose. Nothing lasts forever.  Apart from old furniture, things just aren’t made that way; they’re intended from the start to fulfill a purpose, then die (at least metaphorically). It is a cooling off period to be sure.

The realization of change or the awakening to it is however initially disturbing. The disruption can be volcanic, including the repercussions. The molten lava (from lavare “to wash”) succeeds at best to cover the past though it is solid rock when it cools, a transformaion that occurs rapidly and seemingly immutably. It’s another of nature’s burial rituals like autumn leaves falling, rotting and returning to the soil whence it all began. Some things however will never be the same.

In other respects things never really change.  How could they? We cannot erase memories or the past. It is merely an alteration of our perception of what was and what now is, the way we looked at things then and how we look at them now. Nonetheless I have undertaken my own burial process, my own change of the way of looking at things, and a change of how I see them (even, dare I say, what I want to see). It was I confess rather abrupt and somewhat maniacal, even drenched in obsessive enthusiasm. That is the way I am and have always been; it’s just the way I get things done. But the rocketing spirit belies the smouldering disquietude that prompted it.

The ritual act of cleansing or wiping the slant clean is hardly more demonstrable than improved clarity. What an extraordinary amount of baggage we assemble and persist to drag along! A reminder if nothing else that nobody’s listening, and nobody cares.