2015: A Brand Spanking New Year

Joining The Ultimate Blog Challenge forum is one of the best things to happen to me. It not only gave my writing a new platform, but also some wonderful people as friends. One of them is Elly Stornebrink.

Our friendship clicked almost instantly and on a spur, yet she is so special to me, like warm sunshine on a cold winter day. She's so full of life, energy, ideas, and love for everyone.

A resident of North Vancouver, British Columbia; a social activist , and a blogger by choice, Elly is also a visionary of a co-creative children choir. You will be amazed by her interest on various topics such as world traditions, sufism, vedic chants, music, dance forms, human psychology, philosophy, life, celebrations, nature, and so on.

Here are some of her amazing posts I have read in her own blog page, www.xpressyouressence.blogspot.ca:

• World Suicide Prevention Day and Suicide Prevention Week (which has one of her most favourite photos that she took).

• In Honour of National Tree Day (where she hugs a tree with a heart shape in it. She considers herself to be a tree lover and treehugger!)

She's been so wonderful as to agree to guest blog for me here today, to make our first new year together more memorable. I welcome my dear friend to my humble blog page and thank her for the honour.

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The guest blog by Elly Stornebrink on what New Year means to her:

2015: A Brand Spanking New Year

Image courtesy: www.gettyimages.com, photo by Julie Fairman

Imagine a picture of a newborn baby being spanked as initially happens when a child is born (to ensure they are breathing of course, denoted by their crying).

2015 is a brand new year, a clean slate, a time for fresh beginnings.

What would you make of it? Rather, what would you like to make of it, this year, this coming year? How would you like it to be? What do you foresee or like to foresee?

As I write this, this comes to mind: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” This is how Charles Dickens starts his classic novel, A Tale of Two Cities.

From (t)his most famous passage and first lines (paragraph) of this book, we read:

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way …”

There are always “best” and “worst” or “good” and “bad” times, though all are man-named adjectives.

Considering the passage above however, we can contemplate and imagine what we envision for ourselves, if not for the world. For after all, aren’t we like the domino effect: - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domino_effect - affecting each other with our thoughts, words, and actions? The penguins in the movie, Penguins of Madagascar – what can I say, I love animated children’s movies! – illustrate this well near the beginning of the movie. Sometimes, perhaps many times, we may tend to forget this.

Not the exact scene I am thinking of in this movie trailer, though at the :13 time mark you will see a mini-version of what I am speaking about with three of the penguins: https://www.youtube.com/watch? feature=player_embedded&v=BjfID263ViI. Now imagine this with all the penguins (which does occur in the movie by the way)! That is what I am referring to, on a larger, grander scale.

About five to 10 years ago, I came to realize that resolutions do not make sense as they don’t generally work. See my post regarding this and similar words that we commonly associate with and utilize near the beginning of a new year: http://xpressyouressence. blogspot.ca/2014/12/out-with-old-in-with-new_31.html

I have come to learn that possibilities, like a vision, hold a lot of weight. That is, in having a sense of hope, for example, as a possibility is powerful.

As you may know, words do matter. What we think and say have a profound and deep impact upon not only our lives, but also on others.

What do you (fore)see as possibilities for 2015? What would you hope for yourself and mankind in a heartfelt, compassionate way?