The New Year Does not Reset Reality

But love does.

Hi everyone. Maribel and I reach out with this last post of the year grateful for the opportunity you have all given us to serve you through our personal training and yoga classes.

Last year at this time we were looking forward to a year full of programing and retreats. The end of February came around and everything changed. What did not change, however, were the bonds of love that brought us all together, even when the together meant Zooming.

We are so grateful.

As we look at the year ahead, we realize that the difficulties of this year will morph and become different. As much as we would like to think that the greatest challenges are over, we don’t know what the next months will bring.

A couple of days ago one of my dear friends gave me a Next World set of Tarot cards. The cards are beautiful art pieces. They spoke to me right away. I saw how they could be a great way not so much to tell the future but to reflect.

It was late and Maribel and I had just finished cleaning up the kitchen and ready for bed. Before getting up from my chair, I shuffled the cards for a long while and pulled one card. I would use this card, I told myself, to dream.

I pulled Death.

The card startled me and drew me in. I read the description the artist provided and let it settle in.

Death did her hair, picked up her best outfit, and finished off her look with a glorified tiara. As you begin the trek of letting go, your past burns to ashes. Death breathes in the fumes without deteriorating, so they can no longer hurt your lungs…Death asks you to pack your baggage, your losses, your excavations, and your bouts of strength…Death holds your hand and asks you to bypass the chaos. She asks you to walk valiantly; in tears, in armor, in a spell, in fear–but she asks you to stay human.

Cristy C. Road

I placed this description metaphorically under my pillow and went to sleep and dreamt with death. Our cultural teaching on death is to fear it, but doing so comes with the losses that denial always brings. Life cannot exist without death and so endings are essential if there are going to be new beginnings and new life.

I mention this thinking of this year of losses and so many actual and metaphorical deaths. Some of you reading have lost loved ones this year. Your grief, as painful as it is, is part of the healing that will take much time to emerge and that will carry you to new spaces.

All of us have lost in ways that we may not be able to describe fully. These undefined losses are tricky because the grieving process often gets short circuited by our own cultural conditioning of denying death and quickly moving on to the next thing in an effort to feel better. It’s important to notice that every time we do this, we get deeper into a sense of disconnection from our own bodies and life itself becoming the walking dead, zombies of sorts. We try to alleviate this suffering through more means of denial–compulsive buying, working excessively, overeating–any drug of our choice.

So, as we reach the end of the year, watch for the hurried desire to move on and forget the losses of 2020. Letting go can only happen as we embrace death itself and all she represents. We invite you draw within your beautiful hearts, honor the losses, and find as many ways to hold one another in love and connection.

This last part, unlike the calendar, helps us reset our reality and find meaning and grace in everything that comes our way.

We are grateful for you and look forward to a year of continued practice,

-Maribel and Carlos

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