Beginnings are scary and exciting, and while we are often in denial about things ending—things like the good times and our existence in this world—there is also something enchanting about endings.

Endings are beguiling, a little bit like fire, taunting us with their allure and daring us to come closer.

I remember the frenzy swirling around the new millennium 15 years ago, (remember Y2K, anyone?), and then all the talk around the possible implosion set to take place on 12/12/12.

That day, I remember waking up, on a beach in Thailand, and taking particular note of how there the world still was, more or less as it had been the day before.

It had rained all night, which was unusual given it was the dry season. I remember feeling it was hard not to think in metaphors on a day the world was supposed to come crashing down.

Lurid symbolism filled my mind. Was this unseasonal rain an actual watering down, in a way, of the cataclysm we were all bracing for? A reminder that dark times were nearly averted and could return, vengeance-like, anytime, provided we don’t learn how to live properly?

Or was it just rain?

Is anything ever “just” that thing?

I’ve come to learn that it’s rarely the case that something is nothing.

After all, each of us makes the world, our world, and why would we make nothing?

Why would we make it at all?

The trick, I feel, is to remember, and to remember all the time, that we have made and we do make our own world—as well as ourselves—every moment.

We need to be acutely aware of this process of self-creation and world-creation if we want to live in a world that is also a world-of-conscience.

Today, here, now: it’s three years later and sometimes world affairs can feel more than a little ominous. Back on 12/12/12, when it felt much the same, I experienced a dull, light rain in an otherwise sunny and perfect season that, like all of them, saw its share of pleasant, unpleasant and everything in between.

There are some who believe that the proverbial or actual end of the world, predicted by many, has been avoided because of all the work people have been doing with the forces of light. This is a beautiful idea, that amid news of calamity and destruction and hopelessness, there is indeed a movement of luminosity underway, that underpinning the rain of our fear is beauty and hope for re-genesis—so that it’s actually possible to partake in the world’s recovery.

There are still others, who say it’s ridiculous to assume that Mother Nature will cave under the weight of human misbehavior, that nature is much stronger than anything we can do to annihilate her.

This much is true, and also undeniable: we are still here now, a beautiful pairing of humans, other beings and our planet. Earth is still here now, and there is as much potential for laughter as for sadness and as much ability for light as for dark.

This, I believe: we make our world, and then we remake it.

Every time and all the time.

Is this fanciful thinking? Because it’s as practical as any thought I feel I’ve had. I can’t imagine anything more powerful than turning a day around, for instance, by willfully observing and then letting go of a negative thought.

If it can be done, it’s because we’ve done it. If we haven’t done it, we have absolutely no way of proving it cannot be done.

This is logic.

So let’s meet the world we have made, see where it can use some work (some of our light), and know that this work is nothing more or less than spinning on the axis of love (we love love, we fear love, we too often narrow the scope of love) and the creative power that belongs—intrinsically so—to all of us.

Let’s also remember: the point isn’t to live forever, any more than it is to actively avert death, to get away with not dying.

The point is to embrace death in order to fully live our moments of not-yet-in-death that remain to us.

We can’t know tomorrow, but we can always choose our today.

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Relephant read:

March Solar Eclipse: Total System Reboot.

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Author: Tammy Stone

Editor: Ashleigh Hitchcock

Photo: courtesy of the author