BUOYANCY
“When we investigate rhythm, we see that life is not a straight line but a wave, with its many ups and downs. But whether up or down, it still has the same life Energy. As human beings we need the impetus to lift out from the down to the up. It does not happen automatically. We have to contribute to it through our attitude, our emotions and our choices. The power of choice must be fully recognized.” (Swami Sivananda Radha Light and Vibration)
There’s something satisfying about reaching a round number of blogs before the calendar year flips over to 2025. Of course calendars don’t really flip like a Rolodex any more, and likely nobody born in this century knows what a Rolodex is, but some things remain constant no matter what month or year we are talking about. I remember the rude awaking I once had when flipping through old journals and reading the same complaints and grievances as I might have written about yesterday. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose?
At one point I thought those old journals would make interesting reading in my sedentary old age, but was humbled to see, after randomly dipping into decades of “morning pages”, how little progress I’d actually made! The hope and faith, peace, joy and love that the advent season represents were so little in evidence that I ultimately had some twenty-years’-worth of journals shredded before we moved to our current residence.
Of course by then I had long since switched to making my journal entries on an iPad, where they generally languish out of sight and out of mind. When I do remember to reread them, I’m often surprised by what I find. Today I reread the following journal entry from a few days ago:
“Sure that I couldn’t celebrate another Christmas like yesterday’s ever again, I’m yet buoyed up by (my granddaughter’s) scrapbook showing what a special part her grandfather and I have played in her life.”
It took that reminder to shift my focus from a mutinous exhaustion to gratitude for a most meaningful Christmas gift . It was an affirmation that every effort I make to go from “the down to the up” takes me closer to becoming the embodiment of spirit that Jesus’ birth represents, and for which achievement we all have the potential.
I like to think of the impetus to go from the down to the up in terms of buoyancy. Buoyancy implies an innate tendency to pop to the surface like the bubbly folks open on a night such as this, New Year’s Eve, when an external pressure is released. At the moment, buoyancy also implies the flexibility to pivot (or bounce, as our eldest son would say) when I encounter an obstacle like a cabin full of people bent on writing New Year’s Eve letters — to themselves — that we would open together on December 31, 2025. As Swami Radha wrote, the power of choice must be recognized. I choose to go with the momentum of the group and hope this says something about buoyancy.
Happy New Years to all and to all a good, safe, satisfying, fun and laughter filled night.