Let me look at you 2020

We live in a world of contrasts, moving between shadows, in an unknown dance between light and dark, forming unseen patterns of intentions and inattentions.

For we cannot exist, only in the light, or only in the dark; the dance is constant, the patterns permanent, a combination of light and dark.

I think of times, of memories of goodness, and kindness, and humanity, and sometimes, they feel oddly heavy, for they are shrouded in a dark veil of events, exceedingly sad.

For even the most magical of tweezers cannot pluck away, only the good, the shiny, the golden, leaving to dust and decrepit, the unhappy, the wretched.

For in our life of contrasts, lie intertwined bonds, of happy and sad, of light and dark, they are but conjoined twins, they can never be only one.  

Let me look at you, 2020. You have been all that - with shadows scary, and hopes light and airy, I know I cannot remember one, whilst turning my back to the dark.

The yin and the yang of our existence, even when it frustrates, brings optimism and comfort; for even in the darkest times, there must come the light.

 ***

A year such as the one we have just had, begged for a pause and a little contemplation. I decided to jot down a few reflections that had flickered through my mind several times this year. Words flowed so swiftly, my typing could barely match their speed, as they hurtled through, in whatever quasi-poetry form they wished to ooze out in. 

Many many more thoughts remain whirling in my head about this incomparable year we have just had. As I am sure, they are swirling in yours. Truly, let me look at you, 2020!

  ***

 Ouroboros

This word, this haunting image, spirals through my mind all year. The tireless Ouroboros, the serpentine symbol of destruction and rebirth, the snake eating its own tail, destroying, recreating, reinventing.

The serpent is vicious, it destroys in haste. Pandemic, forest fires, lives on ventilators, burnout, lost jobs, businesses shuttered down, loneliness, deserted streets.

Yet, in its spiral, it remains a symbol of eternity and infinity and return. Of spirit, and survival and rebirth. Always returning, never stopping, never giving up.  

Let me look at you 2020, whilst terrifying and destroying, and bringing us to our knees, with humility and humanity, you bring strength, and faith to recreate, to reinvent, to not succumb and become dust.  

And even the thoughts of a menacing snake, cannot take away the circular of the ouroboros, of life, of continuity, of eternity, and a reminder, that we lay in a circle, this circle. Of destruction and rebirth.

  

Happy New Year!