The Portal of 2020
Welcome to 2021. You made it.
I’ve spent the last few days marinating in the experience of 2020. We were all anxious to see this year go and to step through some magic portal to 2021 where everything is, well, better.
Google defines a portal as “a doorway, gate, or other entrance, especially a large and imposing one.”
The large and imposing nature of 2020 was the portal. But to where? A land where everything is better? What does that even mean?
Practically speaking, I suppose it means that the pandemic would be over and we can continue to live our lives the way we were.
But should we? Can we? I don’t think so. I can’t. We are all changed and that is a good thing.
2020 was the year of awakening through loss and suffering.
As of today, 1.8 million people worldwide have died of the Coronavirus. In our city, more than 25,000. Black, Indigenous, and Latinx Americans have all had a COVID-19 death rate of more than 2.7 times that white Americans. (source)
I read a few weeks ago that every day 800 small businesses in the US close due to COVID. Almost every yoga studio I know of in NYC had to close their physical locations permanently. Many restaurants are hanging on by a thread. Our government is not equipped to handle taking care of its people. Systemic racism is in our DNA as Americans. The media and social media companies in this world are creating narratives that we are consuming as truths.
Suffering is a swift teacher, so let us learn well. Let us wake up to a new way of living that includes truly taking care of ourselves and each other.
I love the lotus flower as a metaphor for awakening. The lotus is considered a pure and perfect flower. But it rises from muddy and murky waters. This is us. We are rising from the trauma, pain, and suffering of 2020 to create a new world. And we are doing so with the wisdom of our collective experiences.
Historically, the new year is a time we invoke resolutions, create new habits, and drop others.
I invite you to consider a new practice, not a resolution but a new practice.
I find self-inquiry to be a powerful doorway to my own growth. I sometimes journal the answers, sometimes I just contemplate them. This is one way that I am using my experiences of 2020 to further awaken and create change within me and around me. I share these with you in case they are useful in some way.
Questions to contemplate:
What do I need? How can I nourish myself today?
How can I support someone who needs support?
How can I use my privilege as white person to uplift a person of color? How can I unravel systems of racism in my own world?
What am I not seeing?
Where can I be more compassionate? Where can I be more empathic? More patient?
Where can I judge less and offer grace more?
How can I serve? What can I teach? How can my experiences and lessons help others?
Where can I surrender more? Where can I accept more? Where can I forgive more?
Change really does begin with us. We have all experienced so much change this year; now let's use it. Let's use our experiences for the good of all beings. We all have something magical to offer this world. Let the practice of self-inquiry and self-nourishing allow that magic to rise up within you and serve the world around you.
You are all magical beings and I love you so.
