By Rev. Amari Magdalena
Fireworks and loud cracking sounds filled the air. Across the sea and here in the US people were cheering and drinking in the New Year 2024. Which brought me to thinking, just what is a New Year? At best here, it is an agreed upon beginning of a Gregorian calendar year. At worst, another veil protecting the people from knowing the truth of our “Matrix” and its real objective, reducing power to a few elite wealthy and creating a servant class. Feudal rule, anyone remember? The noise of New Year’s Eve often deafens the underlying mummer of what is really happening.
On January 1st too many are nursing handovers from alcohol fueled New Year’s Eve celebrations. Some are assiduously penning their resolutions or watching sports events on television. Many are saying, ‘so what’ and wondering what the fuss is all about. Some of us are saying, “Why?”
On one hand any occurrence suggesting a do-over or opportunity to begin again, is a very positive thing. Yet we have that opportunity each New Moon, each season, and, in fact, each day. In truth, there are many new minutes, days, months, and years.
Buddhist New Year is January 25th. In 2024 the Chinese Year of the Dragon is launched on February 10th. Spring Equinox was the New Year in many cultures on March 20th. Nowruz is celebrated Marcy 20-21. Some celebrated the first New Moon after the Spring Equinox as the New Year which would be in 2024 April 8th. Hindu Nav Varsh is celebrated on April 9th this year. July 7th-8th is the Islamic New Year. October 2nd, marks the beginning of the Jewish New Year. You can see, that New Year is different for other people and beliefs.
On the other hand, a few are meditating and sending affirmations and intentions to actually create a world of love and peace. And, I applaud them as these are my wishes too. Yet it does not exonerate any of us from taking some responsibility to move from desires to actions. Throughout recorded history are stories of many spiritual people moving beyond simple wishes to actually starting movements to disrupt and change feudal systems. Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Yeshua Ben Joseph, to name a few.
Beyond wishes and dreams, this time on the planet is calling us to service. Each, in our own way, are asked to be vehicles for positive change wherever we are; to show up for the task before us. For some the call will be greater, for others simple. Yet the call to action as we begin our 2024 year is evident. So much divisiveness has ruled 2023 and before. Divisions and fractures have garnered too much media attention. Very evident climate change is no longer whispered but shouted across the globe.
We are being asked, sometimes not politely, to show up for the great change up. We must, be agents for the changes we espouse. No more sitting things out in silence with those affirmations and meditations. We are encouraged, in these Divided States of America, to embrace John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address: “Ask not what your country is doing for you, ask what YOU are doing for your country!” …and the world.
Remember that great worldwide song, “We are the World, “which asked us to make it a better place and come together as one? Well, let’s do it!
“No one can feel free from danger and destruction until the many torn threads of civilization are bound together again. We cannot feel safer until every nation, regardless of weapons or power, will meet together in good faith, the people worthy of association. There can be a happy world and there will be again, when men create a strong bond towards one another again, a bond unbreakable by a studied prejudice or a pass circumstance.” ― Ruth Bader Ginsburg
“We must include the ‘others’ that our judgment views as separate from us. We will need to behold the golden threads of essential light and energy that connect us all.” ― Amari Magdalena, El Mundo Bueno Saving Humanity and Our Glorious Planet.
“Year’s end is neither an end nor a beginning but a going on, with all the wisdom that experience can instill in us.” —Hal Borland
“What do you need in the New Year? You need a dream; your dream needs an action; and your action needs right thinking! Without right thinking, you can have only unrealized dreams!”
― Mehmet Murat ildan
