This season—when we mark the turning of the solar year and the calendar year—is full of traditions, observances, and reflections that can pull us out of our routines, and sometimes lift us into awe-inspired focus. Simple actions may assume a curious significance and memories spring vividly to awareness.

I’ve been reflecting on this sense of heightened awareness as I engage year-end rituals with family and friends. And I’ve been taking a break from electronic media. Reducing the scale of my focus to the here and now has been enlightening, and uplifting.

We do not have to look very far to find tensions and contradictions in our lives. Being present as we engage with these challenges is at the core of energy work. Our intentionality does not exempt us from challenges, but it provides us with a perspective to frame our perceptions, thoughts, and actions.

When we enter the world of electronic media, we are presented with a constant, repetitive, and graphic portrayal of events, a world characterized by threatening situations that feel chaotic and abstract, where human interactions are dominated by survival and self-protection.

Catastrophizing is a psychological term that describes a tendency to find the worst in a given situation and much of what I see on electronic media seems like catastrophizing at a grand scale.

How can we unfold our individual imagination, creativity, and vision without adopting the attitude of catastrophizing about current events and future possibilities?

When I observe my life, I note that most of my interactions are at an intimate scale—daily one on ones with my beloveds, weekly meetings with a handful of colleagues, or periodic gatherings with friends, acquaintances, and neighbors. Even when traveling and in the midst of many people I do not know, my interactions are typically comfortable, unguarded, and often quite friendly.

When I compare my experience with the stream of catastrophes presented to me, even with my best intentions of neutrality and curiosity, I sense a disconnect. If I follow this mental exercise further, in an attempt to measure the influence of my choices on global events, I feel disempowered and overwhelmed. In this state, the power and beauty of individual thoughts, words and actions feels insufficient, anemic and diminished.

In the midst of my contemplation, in a flash of vivid recollection, I am drawn back to a December evening eighteen years ago. My three-year-old son, wearing the small white cape of our local children’s choir, stands on the dais with his peers, their pure voices singing “This Little Light of Mine.” The chapel is lit by scores of candles held aloft by friends and neighbors. The warmth of this memory floods my entire body in an instant, as I witness directly the power of energy to cross time and space.

Each simple act of light contributes to a brighter collective present—holding the image of this presence reverberates through time. The intention to bring our light to the world is both powerful and transformative, for each of us and for all of those we touch with our presence. And when we touch into our own light, we find a wellspring of collective light available to us.

Engaging life from a centered and grounded selfhood, through our personal expression of emotionality and physicality, has effects that are dynamic and multi-dimensional and extend far beyond the interpersonal scale.

What I wish for you in 2024 is full engagement with—and deep respect for—the unfolding of your idiosyncratic creativity, of your expressions of curiosity, kindness and generosity. I wish for you moments of light to remind you of the sacred nature of your journey. And I wish for you a perception, even fleeting, of the power of your thoughts, words, and deeds for now and for all time.

A meditation for bringing your light to the world

Year’s end is a particularly potent time to release patterns and make space for new ways of relating to ourselves and the world. Try this meditation a few times as you transition from 2023 to 2024.

Ground.

Bring your attention to the center of your body, the central channel in which seven Astral chakras are located. Gently touch each of these chakras with your attention and feel the energy and light emanating from each one.

Invite yourself to feel the collective glow of all of these chakras, a pulsing lightness and warmth. As you tune into this light, allow it to increase and flow outward to the edge of your aura. Sense your centeredness as you allow your personal expression of light to flow outward in all directions.

Create a rose just outside the edge of your aura. Send any “shoulds, have tos, and oughts” that you are ready to release out onto that rose. As you release any sense of limitation, sense your light expanding even further. Explode the rose and recycle your energy back in through your crown.

Come back to your sense of centeredness, to your light. Sit with the comfort, the familiarity, the beauty of your personal creative expression in the world. Invite Earth energy and Cosmic energy into your aura.

Take a few deep breaths and thank your self for being open to possibility and for continuing to unfold your own unique creative expression.

Recycle and replenish.

Ground.