A Time For New Beginnings

Being a Monday (which I have off from work), and with my dear lady feeling a bit under the weather, I had time to drive her into university today rather than have her suffer the vagaries of public transport.  It gave me a couple of hours to go down to West End and sit in my favourite coffee shop and read the novel I am currently trudging through (The Remake, by Clive James, and while I say trudging it is rather good), write a bit in my journal, and drink a few cups of very good coffee (Ugees don't have a website, but you will find them on facebook).  Following this I indulged in what has become a Monday ritual lately and stopped off in Boundary St to buy pide for me and Sue.  I know this semester will end and we may not have Mondays any more like these ones, but I will always enjoy the thought of our little ritual.

All this talk of ritual though puts me in mind of the importance of ritual in our society, which is something I have struggled with in some ways.  I remember many years in art school being introduced to the whole conceptual process, and the idea of developing art from a concept.  Our assignment was to create art based on of our rituals, something I was uncomfortable with.  At the time I had just started the journey away from being involved in organised religion, from a safe institutional state of mind (a journey that continues) towards new ways of thinking.  Looking back I think I was unsure of the difference between ritual and routine.  I had entered into organised religion at the age of 19, and at the time it seemed to answer a lot of questions and provide safety and stability, as well as freshness and excitement.  10 years later I felt as though all that shine had worn off, I had spent time thinking critically and looking at some of things I had believed and decided I didn't really believe them any more.  All this to say that rituals can deliver a safe, warm, cosseting, environment, but they don't always encourage us to discover new things, and sooner or later we reach a point where we have to form our own opinions and come to our own conclusions.

From this we learn to create our own world, by our thoughts, and by the stories we tell ourselves.  In a way then we do create our own realities.  We can of course choose to believe other peoples stories and participate in their realities, but then we are merely players on someone else's stage, and we surrender our power to create our own story and create our own reality to someone else.

Today then is a new moon, and a powerful one at that, placed in Aries, the first sign of the zodiac.  What better time for new beginnings, to put negative thinking and negative people behind you, to begin to tell yourself a new story, to create a new mythology for yourself, and to start life afresh.