The year is ending and the mood seems temporarily grey and depressed to me. It is tempting to give in to the grey and get all worked up about the virus, restrictions, or anything else. I, too, tend to do this and am fed up, to say the least, with the constant new regulations and the ubiquitous, tense discussions about vaccinating.
That said I want to end the year with hope. Hope that we have all learned something about ourselves and how we deal with such challenges. Where do our thoughts go when something becomes incomprehensible or difficult? Do we manage to see what is good anyway or do we sink into passivity and lethargy? Thoughts are a powerful instrument and the root of our words and actions. In this sense, I want to remember all the moments in which we have laughed heartily in the past months, even if under the mask. Moments when we rejoiced over cinnamon cookies and ate at least three too many. Moments of solidarity and community. Moments of sunshine and summer rain. Even if the summer was short, the change of season shows us that everything passes. Beautiful, as well as difficult.
Like the constant change, the principle of yin and yang is also characterized by the constant change and necessary opposite poles. The basic philosophical context of Daoism is quite simple: Everything in the world has a necessary opposite pole.
So when we suffer, we may still have hope that the opposite pole, joy and lightness will come. And who knows, maybe this will help us to have confidence and trust that the situation will pass.
And to follow the principle of Yin and Yang, in every darkness there is also some light, sometimes you just have to look for something...
