Hear this blog post read aloud:
Our September session was beautifully led by Karen Whittick, who shared a heartfelt piece of writing to guide us in. Her words got us thinking both philosophically and personally, and set the tone for a session that felt both reflective and connecting.
We began by exploring the act of saying hello and goodbye. We talked about how in some languages the same word is used for both greeting and parting, for example aloha in Hawaiian or salut in French. In Islam the phrase as-salaamu alaykum means “peace be upon you,” with the response wa alaykum as-salaam meaning “and peace be upon you too.” This struck us as a beautiful way of not only wishing peace in both directions, but also of recognising the cyclical nature of life
From there our conversation moved into the different ways hellos and goodbyes show up in our lives. We spoke about the safety created by acknowledging someone on a hike (they might remember you afterwards if you go missing!) while others are told that its not safe to say hello. For children especially it can be confusing to be told to beware of strangers and also to be polite. We also thought about the everyday moments when a hello opens the door to respect, conversation and connection.
Our reflections then widened out into life changes ; moving home, changing jobs, the end of relationships, and the opening of new chapters. We noticed how every goodbye can carry the possibility of a hello, if we are open to it, and wondered whether that life lesson get easier with practice. How sometimes we can feel a bit stuck, while others we might flourish because we have learned to take something from the goodbye and carry it into the next chapter.
Philosophical threads ran through the whole session. We thought about the infinity symbol and how beginnings and endings are never really separate, how in Buddhism everything is interconnected and always in flux, and how nothing is ever static. At any moment there can be fullness or absence, and it is always shifting.
We touched on the whole spectrum of emotions that beginnings and endings can bring – joy, sadness, excitement, loss. Ceremonies, seasons and phases all hold that mixture. Airports and train stations came up as places where hellos and goodbyes are especially present and felt.
It was a session full of richness. There was a zooming out to the big philosophical picture and then zooming in to the specifics of our own lives.
Read on to see what our participants wrote and shared in response…
Continue reading “Beginnings and Endings”
The Stories of Our Lives 