Ominous

The light came up and fog was heavy. The temperature also went up - 51 degrees fahrenheit. Today is Tuesday.

The energy of our times is clear: we are in trouble. Even as one enters with hope whenever a new cycle comes around, this year it feels different. This image is one that transmits the power, the intensity of breath inhale and exhale, and the tiny ball that would normally be a play between the dragons, is instead one of perhaps many catastrophes to come - look closely at that little ball.

It is always there. The destruction and damage from not knowing how to find the synchronicity in living.

This year, people who are working on many different fronts can feel the possibility of an ominous future. The first hints in politics have emerged with a former leader who is under indictment, winning the nod from an early caucus that historically signaled who would be victorious in a presidential race.

The conditions are changed; and they are still changing. The world that we now occupy has so many different levels of cause/effect happening all at once that it can be dizzying unless one has the ability to see through the chaos. The demands on time have increased because the capacity to communicate has expanded. The desire to express views has multiplied, as the venues in which views can be expressed have also multiplied. The activities that are available to anyone who feels a need to engage on an issue or cause are almost as numerous as the personalities that exist among the approximately 8 billion people who currently live on the planet.

Thankfully, there is something called "saving grace" and our saving grace in these times is that we already have seen worldwide tragedies and harm; and we have also seen recovery, resilience, and repair in societies and in individual lives. Things have never been perfect. And that fact remains. Among the activities that people can choose to pursue are the things that give way to possibilities that challenge complacency and surrender to fear. The ones who understand and are not undone by the realities of the damage we seem to have to encounter regularly, are the ones who keep spirit alive.

Whether it is in community, in music, in art, in creating alternative realities in film and theater - there are people who know the universal language beyond all of the divisions that tend to be used to create suspicion and distrust. There are those who will trust that there is a way to manage the energy of the dragons this year. Exactly how that managing will happen is exactly as one must always live: in accord with the conditions one faces in every moment. So long as the actions and thoughts are in accord with caring, consideration, kindness, trust and other ways of being that all life asks of us, another little ball could appear. That one will be much greener, and more inviting into the future.