We live with a paradox:
all of our ends are beginnings.
Where our faces end, the sky begins.
As one year ends another begins.
Things begin with endings:
summer is over, we are harvesting our vegetable gardens,
the trees' leaves now turn from green to yellow and brown, ready to fall away
Autumn, when we feel so much come to an end, our tradition tells the world was created.
We feel the cycle of the seasons in so much of our lives. We absorb energy before we express it.
A newborn inhales before crying.
We feel our breath rush in to fill our bodies, then blow out in sustained speech.
And so we all create by drawing in,
by withdrawing
as we begin, we do so by ending.
But we are aware that there is a thread that continues through the beginnings and through the endings.
As we breathe we feel it. It is the breath of life we carry within us.
In each one of us.
As we feel it in our breath, we can also see it.
The spark of the divine.
We can see it glow on our faces as we look into one another's eyes.
We stand now at a time of endings, of beginnings. An end to old ways and a beginning on new paths.
Tonight we start a period of trial and transformation; of tremendous and awesome creativity.
We now enter the process of turning into ourselves, to come closer to that holy spark...
May we, as the caterpillar builds its cocoon, draw ourselves inside to emerge a brilliantly colored butterfly.
©Mark Hurvitz
1996