// On Beginnings

We romanticize beginnings. We think they are shiny and glossy and glimmering, we think they are majestic, like a long-locked old, wooden portal that finally opens its arms and lets us in – entering a new and untouched world while fireworks are painting the skies above our head. And then we take the first steps, confident and courageous, we start a new year, a new job, a new routine, a new career. It usually does not take too long until we start seeing the cracks, old beliefs and structures and systems leaking through the keyholes of the doors that we had closed firmly behind us, once and for all – this is what we thought.

The month of January has written itself in the books – and I can watch my resolutions crumbling in my palms just like the gluten-free bread I have attempted to bake. I have been trying to wake up earlier, to spend less time on my phone, to find a job, to find a community, security, clarity, to find an identity. But in the attempt to begin and establish something new, all I have encountered was – the opposite. I have lost my sense of time, I have lost sight, I have lost friends, I have lost my self – the old self, the outworn, the shrunken. I have felt confused and lost, I have felt lonely and detached. I was looking for beginnings, but all I have encountered was – endings.

Since I happen to be a spiritual person, I thought something was wrong with what I’ve manifested, the vibrations I’ve created, the things I’ve attracted. However, there are two things that I am coming to realize. One: How would I know, truly know, what beginnings feel like if I have never tasted an ending? Two: For something to trans-form, the form has to die before it can evolve beyond. Therefore, endings are an inherent part of beginnings. Let’s unravel this a bit more.

One//

How would you know what love is if you have never experienced what it feels like to be unloved, unwanted, unappreciated? How would you know the colors of unbound joy if you have never had to maneuver through silks of sadness and dull desperation? And: how would you know what beginnings feel like, taste like, smell like if you don’t have a profound innerstanding of the texture of endings? It is in the experiencing of both ends of a spectrum where a circle can be drawn, connecting, and integrating opposing poles.

Two//

We romanticize beginnings. We think they are shiny and glossy and glimmering, yet what we often don’t (want to) see when we look ahead is what lies behind. And so, we skip a phase – we open a door, walk right through, and close it – without looking back. Without standing on the threshold. Without letting go. Without saying goodbye. Without taking the time to acknowledge what was, without taking the time to grieve, without taking the time to see the ending. And this is why deliberately chosen beginnings often show a lot of resistance – like starting a new year and realizing in February – at the latest – that nothing has changed. This is why oftentimes, beginnings force us to go back, to repeat a cycle, and to revisit what we have left unended, for we cannot start a new chapter without closing an old one.

It is the closing, the ending, the grieving – that is truly challenging. We might say, we want a change – but are we ready to sacrifice the old, the comforting cradle of memories? Are we open to meet the pain within those layers that have held and rocked us gently? Are we willing to extract the roots, to cut the ties, to bury the form? We might say, we want new beginnings – but in this process, something has to die. Just like the caterpillar has to disintegrate inside the chrysalis in order to become a butterfly. It is important to add here that it is not about destroying the form, it is about allowing it to dissolve and to re-create itself. It is about trust – having faith in the unknown, in the rebuilding of things, and in our human ability to create everything out of nothing. And finally, it is about imagination – daring to picture a beginning that is radical. @sameen.affaf made me remember that the word ‘radical’ originates from the Latin word ‘radicalis’, which translates to ‘having/forming roots’, or ‘radic-, radix’, meaning ‘root’; radical beginnings need us to dig deep – to find the roots of something that no longer contributes to our growth, to pull them out, entirely, and to sit beside the holes.

And right there, we can take the time to grieve the endings. This process can be long and wearing because grief does not want us to get past it, it wants to be integrated. It wants to be a part of the transition, the circle, the cycle. Grief wants us to pause in-between breaths, it wants us to listen to the shift, and it wants us to honor the traces within the transition. It wants us to be present, being in the center of the circle that connects the old and the new. This is how it integrates, how the pieces fall into place, and how the beginning opens itself. It is in the mourning, indeed, where movement is found.

Two-One//

2021.

A new year can mark a new beginning – but usually, the beginning is stubborn. It doesn’t like to be told when to start operating. It resists, it creates opposition, and it urges us to wash out the old pathways and to wrap up properly. And sometimes, it just sends us back to where we already were, for it knows we are not yet ready to change – radically.

Also, beginnings are neither chronological nor linear – something might end, while something else is still expanding; something might ask for a new beginning, while something else might still want to stretch itself further; someone in a relationship might be ready to leave, while someone else might still need to hold onto it. Our lives are not like books where we turn page after page, and the page count changes. Where a new sentence can begin once you have placed a full stop and where a new chapter starts on a blank new page. Being human is messy and our existence is complex. Circles overlap and lines blur and layers interfere. Connections disconnect and movement gets stuck and heart tissues fall apart. The rupture has its own place in there, between the falling and the landing, between the beginning and the ending.

I want to believe that the rupture has a purpose on and of its own. It is a crack, a vessel, it is a suspended space between ‘already’ and ‘not yet’. And this is where time stops, where we can find the missing pieces, the patience to revisit, and the strength to release what we have tried to skip – this is the space where I am learning to honor that I have lost something. It is the space where I am learning to lean into the mourning of a life before 2020, of a friendship dear to my heart, and of an old version of self. It is the space where I then become the rupture, the crack, the vessel, opening myself to the beginning of a new cycle as I open myself to the endings engrained.

And in this process of revisiting, grieving, and releasing – the opposition is dissolved, and the cycle comes full circle. It is being brought into wholeness. Now, the beginning of something new is already there. All there is left to do is to join - that’s the raw magic of beginnings.

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Note: This blog post was supposed to be written and uploaded by 1 January 2021. However, beginnings oftentimes don’t begin when we want them to.