Happy New Year!

“You have been formed into tribes and nations so that you may know one another.” Quran

“In order to change things for the better, we need not just smart brains, but warm-heartedness and the values of love, compassion and forgiveness.” 
Dalai Lama

Over the last ten days we have been celebrating Christmas and the New Year with a variety of friends, both old and new. At times the revelling may have been too much, and I felt like I was not getting anything constructive done, but I remind myself that this is necessary time off to follow the rituals which draw the old year to  a close and ring in the new.

We have shared meals with people of all faiths and nationalities.  We have sat around a table where meals have lasted for hours while we discovered how similar we are to American, Nigerian, Italian, Kenyan, Russian, Dutch, Mauritian, Canadian, British and Iranian people, as well as fellow South Africans.

Despite the distances which separate us, the same issues touch us, concern us, mobilise us. I lap it all up; I feel like I am giving the finger to apartheid, racism and many other –isms. I firmly believe that we should be building bridges by getting to know each other. When we step outside of the familiar, outside our comfort zones, we make connections which enrich our lives and shrink the world. We cannot help connecting on a deeper level than we are accustomed to.

One of our passions as a family is travel - precisely because we are forced to step out of the familiar and over the artificial barriers which serve to keep us separate. I like to think that the energy with which we start the New Year is the one that we carry through and so, for 2013 I wish for more understanding, compassion, friendship and connections. Happy New Year.

New Beginnings

"Every day have a little bird on your shoulder that asks, "Is today the day? Am I ready? Am I doing all I need to do? Am I being the person I want to be?" 

Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom

It was pretty dark when I woke up just before six this morning. There was a gentle patter of rain on the tin roof over the stoep. I love that soft rain which sometimes falls in the summer time, as if it is coming to wash the heat and dust away. Now it is raining quite hard, big fat drops coming down as if there's a lot of cleansing to be done before we can start a new cycle. 

It has been quite a stormy year on many levels: hurricanes and elections in the US, violence all over Africa and the Middle East, protests in Russia and Greece, a landslide victory for Jacob Zuma, and the economies of many countries in Europe still reeling in the aftermath of the crises of a year ago. 

On a personal level, we and everyone we know, seem to have had an unusually busy year with little time to socialise or connect. Everything seems to have had a good shake up, and by time too. When things get shifted around, energy gets moving in places it might not have reached. 

Perhaps that's why I've done some shaking up of my own. After almost 30 years I am going back to university...I'm looking forward to the new year with a lot of excitement and just a tiny bit of trepidation... new beginnings bring hope and growth. I'm ready for some of that. 

Moving On - St Cyprian's Day and other rituals

Last week was St Cyprian’s Day, as celebrated by my daughter’s school.  It is celebrated every year but this year had special significance for her as it is the last one of her school career. In an age-old tradition the matriculants went off the previous day to a farm in Stellenbosch where they picked lilies to decorate St George’s Cathedral for the St Cyprian’s Day service. They ended off with a picnic.

On the day the girls dress in their summer uniform with their hair in French braids, done up with a blue ribbon. They walk down from Oranjezicht, through the Company Gardens to the Cathedral for the evensong service. Old girls come from far and wide to join in the celebration and afterwards there is a sumptuous feast on the lawns of the school.

At the beginning of the year they had their matric dance. Each matriculant has mentored a grade 8 student, passing on the knowledge and experience of the last 5 years. Last term they handed over their portfolios to the new batch of leaders and last week she had a reunion with the girls she was in junior school with, before they all go their own ways – on gap years or to university. In the next two weeks she will be having the valedictory service and lunch and a dinner with her teachers before the final exams begin.

The feeling of the end of an era has been all around us this year as she has turned 18, voted for the first time, learned to drive, applied for university and looked at a life after school. All of these rituals have been marking the passage of one phase to another.

Rituals have been practised since time immemorial to help us to move on in life – there are rituals for giving a baby a name, for marriage and burial. As we move from one stage to another we say goodbye to the old way of life and embrace a new set of rules for behaviour. As she moves on with life, I find that the rituals help me too to let go and enter a new phase of my own life.