Endings...Beginnings...

While I am by no means an authority, for a long time I've been interested in the Jewish mystical study of numbers.  I apologize for anyone out there, who may actually be an expert in this field if I in any way misrepresent the study of numerology, but I will do my best to share what I have taken from my limited exposure that applies to what has been on my heart lately. I do so completely from memory because, as often happens, I apparently loaned my book to someone who hasn't returned it...and I don't remember who that was.

Numerology looks at the Jewish Tree Of Life, a set of spiritual lessons, which each person works through in cycles of nine years.  Each lesson has a feminine aspect and a masculine dimension. Throughout our lives, we repeat each of the nine lessons, one per year, and then we start the cycle over again. Some years the focus is the masculine side of the lesson; other years it is the feminine. Similar to the hero's journey about which I've written previously, although the basic lesson is the same each time, we go through more advanced versions of the lesson. We go through the cycles individually, and planetarily.

The cycle has been on my heart because the energy of the planet is now transitioning from the end of the cycle to the beginning of a new one.  The transition began at the Jewish New Year (October 2-4 this year.)  It will end at the Winter Solstice (December 21.)  During that three and a half months, it is our spiritual work to "clean house."  2016 has been a "9" year, which is about endings.  People often leave jobs, even careers, end relationships, sell houses, and let go other significant parts of our lives that have served their purpose, but with which we are finished.

By December 21, we should have cleaned out anything that is not part of a new beginning for us. What we carry into the 21st will be with us for another nine years.  I've had this on my mind, but all of the sudden this week I realized that I just have a month left, and I haven't done much cleaning out. Frequent reader of this blog and my friend Amy Frost told me in the Super Moon, which occurred a couple weeks ago, that we should write down anything we wanted to let go of and then set the paper on fire, letting the smoke release the energy of the past into the atmosphere.  That was a busy day, but I did some general letting go into smoke that day.

But I know I have way too much baggage to carry with me into the future.  Let me count the ways.

Besides the energy of spiritual baggage, there is some literal baggage I am dealing with.  Almost a year ago, construction in my apartment building's storage area required me to bring up everything from my storage unit.  It has been sitting in my bedroom closet since then.  I knew I needed to clean out, but I haven't made doing so a priority.

When I left my last job in August, I hastily packed up anything that was mine personally and brought five boxes home with me...also in my bedroom closet.  (Fortunately, I have a bedroom closet big enough to party in.)  I know there is a lot to be left behind there as well, but sorting through my office boxes has not been a priority either.

I thought I was going to have the time to just sit in my closet this weekend and sort, but I have allowed the approaching holidays and associated activities encroach on my time. I am not sure whether that is avoidance or choosing my future to be with friends...or a little of both. While I make an effort to keep my Sabbath sacred, I have decided that this spiritual sorting exercise is an appropriate Sabbath activity, and I will sit in my closet on Sunday afternoon.

I also have a desk at home that I have been sorting through for two weeks, and I am close to seeing the surface of at least a third of it now.  There is more, for sure, but great progress.  What remains are my time-consuming projects, and I am not sure when I will find the time, but doing so is a priority for me now.

There are bookshelves that are bulging as my appetite for new books always exceeds the time I have to read them.  My folder of clipped recipes was so full at the beginning of last week that it wouldn't close.  I am grateful for Thanksgiving and Christmas menu planning for nudging me to begin to go through it two evenings earlier in the week.  There is more, but I have found that some of the recipes just don't look good any more, and pitching them has been easy.

When I think about what I want to take into the next nine years, though, more important than cleaning out "stuff" is being conscious of what habits I am ready to let go of and what new ones I want to choose for my future.  As I reflect back over the last nine years, I think that this cycle has been about the time period during which I've forfeited the intentional life I had built and allowed myself to be overtaken by work, in every variety.

For decades, I ate healthfully, exercised daily, meditated at least once a day, did extended meditation retreats, danced several times a week, practiced gratitude daily, spent time with friends and laughed a lot.  Morsel by morsel, most of that has slipped out of my life since 2007, and I want to reclaim "my" life and let go of whatever has consumed me.

New habits are formed in 30 days. I could be overwhelmed as I look at all the new habits I want to form.  However, at least for me, I respond well to any positive change in my life.  Intuitively, I know that if I change one thing, changing others seems much easier.  I feel it is almost like flipping a switch back to the "real Kay," rather than changing eight different habits.

In my as-yet-unpublished book Choice Point, which I thought was "finished" in 1997, I wrote that life should be a meditation, and in each moment we should consciously ask, "Is this a 'yes' or is this a 'no?'"  When I think about reclaiming my life, the question I need to ask isn't will I exercise or not today, it is "Will I be who Kay's soul intended her to be today?"  A single question, applied to every situation, asked consciously.  Life as a moment-by-moment meditation.

What I know in my heart is that all I want to carry into the next nine years is the consciousness to ask that question a 1,000 times every day...and the courage to act on what I know.