New Year's Day, Numbers and Alchemy of Empty Space

A beautiful picture taking on a truly perfect day.  Even if I didn't see it then.  Next time I will.

Today is Sunday, January 1st, 2017.

Today is number one of seven.

Today is number one of twelve.

Today is number one of thirty-one.

Today is the first day of 2017 and 2017 is 2 + 0 + 1 + 7 = 10. And numerologically 10 is 1 + 0 = 1.  Making today number one of the next ten years.

And because I was born in 1957, today is the first day of the first year in the sixth decade of my life.

So, because I wanted to be ready, it made sense to me to wake up today, at 4 AM, and make coffee and open up my journal. Not the new journal, I'd bought in honor of the new year, mind you.  But the old the journal I'd begun in Fall of 2016 because in that journal there were 24 empty pages remaining. 

The new journal was right there next to my chair and the pull of starting fresh was strong. My first inclination was to close the old journal and turn my back on the old year and the season past and make a new start. But those 24 empty pages called to me. And I realized that it wasn't about wasting paper. It was about a space that had to be acknowledged. 

That space between the old and the new is always the same for me and, whenever I encounter it, I'm reminded of a trapeze artist, letting go of the old bar and hurtling through thin air in the direction of the new one. I think of how everyone always has to let go of whatever it is we've been holding onto and trust - even though there is no hard guarantee that the next thing will be there when we need it.

Leading up to that space I worry about what will happen and think long and hard about how it can all go wrong. But once I'm in it, the uncertainty and fear fade. All at once I remember how vitally important that space is.  In and of itself. 

It is not the space of letting go, although in those 24 no longer empty journal pages I did just that. And it isn't the space of moving forward, either, even though towards the end of those 24 pages I did that too.

Instead, it is a space that is moving and still and empty and full all at the same time.  It is a space of courage and of faith. A space of transition.  A space where anything is possible and everything is in is motion. 

So I encourage everyone to take stock of what was, by most accounts, a very trying year.  I encourage everyone to sort it out and let it go and make that jump.  I encourage everyone to embrace the space between what was and what will be. Because that space is freedom.