Ring Out the Old, Ring In the New

Ring out the old, ring in the new. Happy new year!

This is a potent time over the next week what with the new year, a full moon Wednesday and the Feast of Epiphany on January 6th to contemplate what you envision for 2007. (And commit.)

Imagination is more important than knowledge. - Albert Einstein

If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost, that is where they should be. Now put foundations under them. - Henry David Thoreau

You see things and you say 'Why?' But I dream things that never were and I say 'Why not?' - George Bernard Shaw

Some believe there is nothing one man or one woman can do against the enormous array of the world's ills -- against misery, against ignorance, or injustice and violence. Yet many of the world's great movements, of thought and action, have flowed from the work of a single man. A young monk began the Protestant reformation, a young general extended an empire from Macedonia to the borders of the earth, and a young woman reclaimed the territory of France. It was a young Italian explorer who discovered the New World, and 32 year old Thomas Jefferson who proclaimed that all men are created equal. ‘Give me a place to stand,’ said Archimedes, ‘and I will move the world.’ These men moved the world, and so can we all. - Robert F. Kennedy

The dreamers are the saviors of the world. - James Allen

(And my favorite:) I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free. - Michelangelo

p.s. Be forewarned: The 'ring out the old, ring in the new' process is not 100% certifiably jolly. At first anyhow.

The clearing is vital. Allow the withering to finish its lifecycle, then rake as needed - otherwise you are piling on, rather than visioning fresh.

This time of year may bring peals of the hunker-down-with-the-quilt blues because 'ringing out the old' has its own poignant clang-clang clang-clang. That stripping away, that loss, oh, no not that, yes that too completes its season. The chime of tears keeps its own beat, its own time, for dissolution into the vast primordial sound.

images Just discovered "by accident" the most amazing photographer, Rolfe Horn. One word synopsis: Sublime. Horn's Bell Chedi, Wat Mahthat,Sukhothai, Thailand 2000, Nevoso Alberi, Study 2, Fagettota, Italy 2005, and Statue, Study 3, Capitoline Museum, Italy 2005.

bonus: 'Ring out the old, ring in the new' is a line from Lord Alfred Tennyson's poem In Memorium, which starts...

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
   The flying cloud, the frosty light:
   The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
   Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
   The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.....

double bonus: Join me for an Feast of Epiphany Tea: a salon gathering to scatter our 2006 epiphanies yonder and closer + spread wings for our 2007 visions. In the spirit of creative risk bonding & stretching & connecting. January Sixth, 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., Samovar Tea Lounge, 496 Sanchez, San Francisco, CA (map). Pay as you go. Please RSVP so I know how big a table to commandeer.

Comments

[Kamal]

Nice reminder, Evelyn. Thanks.

[random appreciation]

Lovely thoughts. Here are some additional ones: http://www.metacafe.com/watch/303410/so_now_look_a_documentary_by_brian_southwell/

[arkieology]

Querida Evelyn,

Que lastima que no puedo asistir a su te para la epifania, pero estoy tan lejos. Yo queria ir tanto que yo busque un vuelo, pero estoy todavia miedoso. Esa dia es muy especial para mi. Mi abuelo estaba llamada Gaspar, Jasper in english, y porque de el yo se que esa vida no es el fin. El tenia mas influencia a mi desde su muerte que antes. En la epifania yo busco para claves que me ayuda entender nuestra raison d'etre. en 1985 yo encontre un libro titulado Rule Golden por Damon Knight. La tema es que qualquiera cosa tu haces a otros la misma cosa va pasar a ti. Y la punta do todo eso es, tu haces cosas tan bonitas, tan bellas y lleno de inspiracion, y que yo veo es la misma regresando a ti. Feliz Epifnia.

Tu me ayudas quebrar del carcel de mi mente.
El 21 de diciembre fue mi cumpleanos y su respuesta a mi fue mi mejor regalo.

Attentamente tuyo,
Arkieology

Espero mi espanol es claro, y yo no se porque me gusta ecribir a ti en esa idioma pero asi es.