Well, okay not The Beginning, but a beginning. If you study numerology (I am just a dabbler, not a student) you might have come across a concept called Decisive Age. It is a year (approximately) in your life where you will encounter a fork in the road, some decisions/challenges/opportunities that offer a radically different approach to who you are and the path you are taking. Mine was last year. Interestingly enough, I ran into the concept of Decisive Age just this week and calculated mine to find that it was last year, and boy, was it.
As mentioned I am a dabbler of numerology and astrology. I find the concepts interesting but do not put much stock in it. Not that those methods cannot provide insight and guidance, for many they do. However, I often found my information to be hit and miss. But the decisive age was a hit, a big, all caps 'HIT'. I quit my job, actually I left my 25-year career which felt a bit bigger than quitting a job. I went through a long distance move, sold my house to be homeless for a while, downsized (a lot!), and am embarking on a world tour of sightseeing and exploration both inner and outer.
In a sense you could call the last 2-3 years of my life The Ending. Well, okay not The Ending but an ending. I explored the meaning of life, the universe and everything (big Douglas Adams fan, here) in various ways, some gentle ways and some more tumultuous. At times I fought this phase and fought it hard. I screamed a little, cried a lot, searched and searched and searched for answers. I tried to find something, anything that made sense of what was happening to me in self-help techniques, coaching, meditation, plant medicines, you name it; just as a good, little spiritual development pursuant should. Nothing seemed to help. But, as a good, little spiritual development pursuant does, I let go of what no longer served me... and let go... and let go... and let go. I developed such a habit of letting go I was experiencing dry heaves of letting go; searching for something, anything, I could cast off in the desperate attempt to understand what was going on. My life was not the same and I was not the same.
Interestingly enough the ending phase was also found in numerology. From several angles this phase in my life was deemed an ending. Ending of cycles, ending of a phase, ending of patterns, even the ending of a decade. Frustratingly enough, however, no answers appeared, not really, not in bright, neon-colored, flashing Eureka! I found it! insights. Nothing seemed clarified, just emptier. To very loosely paraphrase Thomas Edison, I found a whole lot of what didn't work. I still did not know what to do next.
Turns out, after the purge is a time of rest, a purgatory of sorts, where settling and reshaping starts to take place. I have rested and some things seem clearer, at the very least what-not-to-do is clearer and the unfamiliar does not carry with it the doubt and fear of abandoning the familiar. What also seems clearer to me is a need to trust that all can work out for the better. I am not a big proponent of destiny. While I do believe we have a blueprint or design that shapes our lives, I feel we do have Free Will. Though, not many really understand how to use that power, I certainly didn't. And more do not understand how we unconsciously and voluntarily give it away. When you are ready to accept that, you then have to accept your responsibility to consciously exercise your Free Will and that is where Purgatory comes in. For me, the rest was a time of coming to grips with my responsibility to exercise my Free Will, with my responsibility to consciously choose how I am going to respond to ALL of life. It is a big, scary, hairy, monster with fangs, menacing growls, bad breath and slobbery drool. No wonder we prefer to be in oblivion, giving away our freedom and pretending we don't have a choice.
Looking back, I see The Ending as a lesson in awareness, as much as a purging in what can seem like an endless cycle of awareness and purging, awareness and purging until the dry heaves set in. And The Purgatory as a time to learn to believe you can actually tame the Free Will monster.
And now, to the beginning of the journey, post-Decisive Age...