Whatever it is, Goethe says, begin it.
At least, that's what some people say he said. The Buddha speaks about the beginner’s mind. Jesus teaches that the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to children. Meister Eckhart tells us to trust the magic of beginnings. And a new year often brings us to a similar state of mind.
Maybe that’s what we're all after with those promises to stop doing any number of the self-sabotaging things we’ve been doing and finally stick to something we say we will or won't do. But what I want to talk about goes beyond such temporary solutions. What I'm talking about is more of a fundamental realignment of awareness.
For us to truly understand the power of beginnings is for us to wake up every day in a new world. We must embrace beginner's mind, question all our questions, give away all our answers, stand naked in the sunrise, and truly believe in starting over. To begin is to believe down deep in your indestructible soil that transformative change is possible. Right now.
More than this, to begin is to live in the most immediate right now you can imagine. That all your yesterdays only matter in that they were the vehicle to bring you to this right now, fully enveloping, beautifully poignant, present moment of beginning.
A beginning is stealthy.
In Dune, Princess Irulan reminds us that, "A beginning is a very delicate time." Which is true, in the sense of the fragility of an idea or an action or a thought that has not yet rooted, not sprouted buds, not caught on. Another way to look at it is that beginnings are easy. Because mostly, nobody notices them. They’ve not suffered from overexposure, embarrassment, partial failure, the need to reboot.
Beginnings often slip through the cracks, down onto the floor, past the ticket-takers, and right up to the stage, before anyone is the wiser. Nobody notices until they are way past the beginning, until there’s enough momentum to survive scrutiny.
And then, it's kind of too late. Not too late, as in too late to begin. Too late as in there's no undoing a beginning that nobody saw coming, that's already in the middle of being, that's half way through its own realization. Just let her finish what she was saying.
The beginning is enticing.
The beginning is enticing because everything is new and exhilarating, like a first kiss. And it is different than just being in the now. In the beginning, things are always beautiful. Sure, we are present, we are aware, but we are also breathtakingly alive.
There is an eagerness, an anticipation, and also an overwhelming sense of right now. It is not merely a hope for things to come, it is an embodiment of the desire to stand right where we are, to soak it up. To be wide awake. To not care about tomorrow, because right now, we are turned on. This brand new [anything and everything we are fully enmeshed with in the beginning] has reminded us of the beauty of being fully awake.
The newness of anything is seductive. A new car, a new house, a new lover, a new town, a new restaurant, a new flower in the yard. But the beginning takes us beyond the surface sexiness of such things and into a parallel realm where we not only are awakened to the saturation of beauty all around us, but confident in our newfound ability to access it, to create more.
A beginning marks a point that lights up the circle.
I've said before there are no beginnings and no endings, only random points on a circle, staccato notes on a page. That our stories are woven like snakes around a divining rod. Not stretched out and laid flat
If the story is circular, then why does a beginning matter? For the same reason that staccato notes matter. Because the beginning is a flash of light, illuminating everything in its path, waking us up, giving us a glimpse of the whole.
So if you are tired of trying to be present in your life but find yourself not there most of the time, considering entering a world where everything is always new. In the words of Michael Stipe, begin the begin.
Great read! Thought provoking