That list shows, at least arbitrarily, how many "new beginnings" we can have. Essentially, each new day is a new beginning. As we lift our heads from our pillows as the sun lifts from the horizon, we are delivered from yesterday's darkness. But if you follow that example closely, you will the symbols (the sun, the darkness), which I employed because I think symbols are immensely important in our lives. Isn't the concept of "new beginnings" also symbolic? It's a way of ordering information, burying the old under the not-yet-experienced.
And if symbols help us to order the information of our lives, we ought to be mindful of which symbols we refer to. Similarly, care ought to be taken in what our priorities are, as we are warned by the expressions, "Be careful what you wish for," and "More tears are spent over answered prayers".
I found a remedy to these problems in the beginning of The Little Prince, where the prince asks the pilot to draw him a sheep. After several failed attempts, each one frustrating the little prince more, the narrator draws a box, and says, the sheep you wanted is inside, to which the little prince exclaims: this is just the sheep I was looking for!
In life, if we are too specific in terms of what we have set out for, we become too rigid, and are easily disappointed. If we look for the essence of our dreams, if we are flexible, there is a greater chance we will find them - especially since so much is not what it seems (e.g. the intellectual is unwise, the most vociferous is the least schooled, the wealthiest is the poorest, etc). Sometimes we will misinterpret, but there's nothing wrong with that. We all know what they say about trial and error. There is no prize without the attempt.
So, what I wish for us all is that we find our own box with just the sheep we were looking for inside it, and have light-hearted fun along the way. And when we find the sheep, we nurture it, and help it grow.
cabochon, medallions, graph paper and frames: pugly pixel;
magazine in background: marie claire idées.
