To end well, truly completing a task, a project, or a process, will lay the groundwork so that we may begin well, building on a strong foundation that is clear, grounded and ready for whatever is coming next.

Marking the completion of another calendar year, we have an opportunity to end well. This means pausing and taking the time for reflection, acknowledgement, and assessment of where we’ve been. Then we can accurately locate where we now stand. When we are truly honest with ourselves and take the time to digest our experiences, we are able to determine our next best step forward. 

Completions are powerful. Yet we often go to great lengths to avoid them or rush through them, distracting ourselves from any uncomfortable or unpleasant feelings. But endings provide the impetus for growth, change, and the shedding of old skins that allows us to begin again.

Time guarantees us a river of change. Things we could never imagine changing or ending, do. Yet, here we are, still. And being still for a moment will help us to stop grasping at the old. The inability to release that which no longer serves us, to let go of what is not necessary...this creates suffering. The celebration and honoring of endings—of what is complete— allows us to integrate and assimilate the nutrients that come from lessons learned throughout a year.

It is a time of year when many of use spend time around fires, whether wood stoves, bon fires, or candles. In yoga, this signifies returning to the power of Shiva, the great destroyer, the energy of ending and completion. Destruction and death can seem and feel devastating. Yoga invites you on a pilgrimage specifically honoring endings and, at the same time, acknowledges all that is ready to transmute and be reborn. We might find images of Shiva dancing in the ash of the funeral pyre and smearing those human remains on his body slightly horrifying or, at least, disturbing. But yoga sees his actions as a way of celebration, respect, and acknowledgment that we are made from what has come before.  In other words, a movement that accurately reflects reality.

What are some ways to recognize to what has been, while releasing it and moving into this new day, the new year?

I hope to see you along the path as we honor what has been and make way for what is to come. 

-inspired by the writings of my teacher, Janet Stone