Endings

The last things and the things that last

Dear Friend

So the year comes towards its close. Here, on the north coast of Ireland, days are short and cold, nights long and often filled with the moaning of the wind at the door.

The cat sleeps a lot, with a wisdom most humans lack.

I’ve nearly finished clearing the old tree, half of which came down in the last big storm. Some has become a dead-hedge, some cut into firewood to dry for a year or two, some chipped into mulch which will find a place somewhere round the garden.

The other half of that big old tree, precarious now, will probably come down in the next big storm. It was its time. It was dying, and the storm, ruthless as nature is, hastened its end.

I miss its shape against the evening sky.

Endings.

I read a quote from Michael Meade:

‘The meaning of the word “end” might seem obvious and conclusive; yet root meanings reveal “tailings” and “remnants” and “that which is left over”…What we find at the end are both last things and things that last… Chaos not only describes the way that things fall apart at the end, but also the original state from which all creation continually arises…’

Or, as TS Eliot wrote:

What we call the beginning is often the end
And to make an end is to make a beginning.
The end is where we start from.

For me, watching the cycle of the seasons here, the shift from one season to the next is more powerful than the arbitrary shift from one year to the next. Nothing shifts between December 31^st and January 1^st, except perhaps my sense of where I am in the flow of time.

Even so, this is, for me at least, a time or looking back and looking forward: a time of a complex relationship to the idea of ending. I try to embrace awareness (and gratitude for) what is finishing, focus on what is to endure, and embrace of the chaos of uncertainty (which is the creative soil the future grows from).

It’s been a complex year for me - the latter half suffused with the presence of death - of a person, and of some dreams and hopes.

When a person dies we must reorientate ourselves to living with their memories and legacies rather than their physical presence.

When our dreams die? Perhaps it’s no different. When something we yearn for, and work towards, disappears, a part of our self goes with it. The part that wanted the things that have not, and will never now happen, has died, tumbled like a tree that can no longer withstand reality.

When a person or a dream ends, there is grieving. Grieving for another person. Grieving for a facet of self.

It is a complex ending. Though things I hoped for will not happen, there are legacies. Things I learned. Experiences I had. People I met. Wisdom I gained. The hundred thousand tiny details of daily living that, together, make up life.

Some things end, much endures. And from the soil the past has made, the future grows.

Whatever you celebrate at this time of year, and however rigorous you are, or choose not to be, about imagining and planning your 2026 into existence, I hope you have the self-confidence and courage to allow what is ending to end, knowing that in our ending is our beginning.

Or as, Eliot put it:

Time past and time future
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.

I wish you a gentle end to the year, and I’m full of gratitude that I know you.


Warmest Wishes

John

PS - In this week’s soundbite (which you can listen to here) I’m thinking about a word I heard Robin Wall Kimmerer use: ‘enough-ness’.

I love it as an idea in life - but also it applies to making art. One of my interests at the moment is in creating minimalist, abstract pictures in ink. The biggest challenges is to stop before I think I should. I recognise a tendency to want to add, to tinker, to refine. If I do too much - I destroy. By definition, a minimalist picture needs to be minimal…...

Here’s a three studies I did last night, trying very hard to leave them alone before doing too much. Learning to trust that enough is enough.



Abstract Minimalist Ink Studies