A New Moon arrives on January 24.
And then after that, the Chinese New Year of the Rat on the 25th.

The duality of an old world dying, and a new one
birthing is laborious, and painful to watch at times.

This transition into a new age and paradigm
goes by different names, just like the moons.

Does that early leaf falling in late summer,
bring you into your fears about the waning light,
and cooler temperatures?

Like all transitions, many people are
questioning where they have been,
and where they are going in their lives.

Some say they don’t want to live on the planet anymore.

There are many forms that people play with to do
that in their consciousness by way of escapism, fantasies,
hitching a ride to another galaxy in a spaceship, running from
our feelings, or retreating into a personal bubble.

One of the ways people give up is through death by suicide.

Killing yourself is certainly one of the 10,000 ways into
the valley of death.

But there are more purposeful ways to expand our souls,
and liberate them, rather than by ending your body’s experience here.

Besides, it’s a really traumatic experience, and terribly confusing.

That’s why I try to be mindful of killing with kindness, and
remember to meditate on Groundhog to die without dying.

It makes sense to me that our ancestors celebrated the Imbolc,
because it marked the mid-point between the Winter Solstice, and Vernal Equinox.

The popular American holiday of Groundhog Day reflects
this symbolism because energetically Spring is starting already.

It’s good medicine to celebrate the light rising at the end of the tunnel,
and the wisdom to see light, and dark balancing each other out again.

As dark of a topic as suicide is,
it does not discriminate.

It doesn’t care if you are rich or poor, what your race,
ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation is, what political
party you belong to, or if you are an introvert or extrovert.

Suicide is something most people contemplate.
But most people don’t do it.

And one of the reasons people don’t end their lives is that people think about
the impact it will have on the survivors, and the holy hell it leaves behind.

One of the complexities of suicide is that people
who try to end their lives, or do end their lives
are sick of the pain, don’t want to deal with it anymore,
and wish their pain would go away.

As a survivor of a completed suicide,
it has been a long journey in working through my own healing process.

It hasn’t been easy to look forward to this month in a new way.

Anniversaries can bring all those feelings,
and old stories right back to the surface –
regardless of how deeply submerged or buried they were.

I can still remember getting the call that my mom
had left this Earth 25 years ago, like it was yesterday.

As you can imagine, that wasn’t an easy call to take,
even though I had tried to prepare myself for it from her previous
attempts, and knowledge of how extreme her shifts
between internal order and chaos could be.

I feel thankful to my family, friends, and fraternity brothers
who were there to cushion the blow, and help me see that
a safety net was there when I needed it.

There have been many ebbs and flows along the way,
regarding how I have handled this tragedy, or not handled it.

Like Sting, I have worn the royal crown of the King of Pain,
and traveled through Dark Knight of the Soul.

For a long time, I’ve been good at hiding that side of myself.
Wearing masks can do that.

But it can also show you who you really are before you are
ready to show your dark and shadow sides to others.

The old survival of the fittest paradigm is
part of a dying process, just as are old stories.

On some level, we have believed that “it’s just the way it is.”

People have been put into boxes, and believed in those boxes.

If you didn’t identify with one version of yourself,
or what someone told you about yourself.

Perhaps you’ve rebelled by becoming the opposite side of the same coin.

The grip of those old stories can be hard to let go of.

We humans have believed in them,
and developed attachments to those stories.

Like with all new moons,
this new moon coming is associated with new beginnings.

And so it is with the lunar energy of a new year.

Rats are shrewd creatures, and can symbolize prosperity,
according to Chinese astrology.

What shrewdness, and prosperity do you want to bring to the table,
and manifest on our Planet in the year ahead?

In social science, rats are associated with behaviorism,
and applied behavioral analysis.

Like humans, rats are intelligent creatures.

Sometimes, behaviorism gets a bad rap about
wanting to manipulate, and control people.

But any knowledge that gets in the wrong hands
embodies that kind of stupidity.

I recently saw an old you-tube interview with B.F. Skinner.
And it was illuminating to see him talk about how he
saw his psychology as a way for individuals to empower themselves.

And I don’t think it’s a coincidence that country rats have been
identified as smarter than city rats.

We all do better in smaller, more intimate circles where we feel
part of a community, and organically connected to Nature.

If you can see the maze for what it is, you can then
see yourself rewiring new cognitive maps.

These are the days of creating amazing portals into new ways of being.

Till we tweet again peeps,

Ari