Friends and I were recently discussing the annual craziness of the December festive season and New Year. We were questioning why we, as a society, endorse this annual madness, why we allow the seasonal push and stress and, behind that, what is orchestrating it all.

How strange that so many of us engage in the craziness of the festive season and yet few question either its origin or purpose other than to party hard and perhaps, articulate a couple of New Year resolutions, which are oftentimes broken within a few weeks of making them.

What are we avoiding by participating in this dysfunctional way of celebrating the passing of the old year and the bringing in of the new? What are we creating for ourselves?

As we shared our experiences, I was aware of an image constantly presenting itself for my consideration. The image was of a board game that I, and many others, played in childhood, often during the festive season: the game of Snakes and Ladders.

This is a competitive game of chance and ends when the first person reaches the finish, creating a strong desire to win and beat your opponents by climbing as many ladders as you can, while hoping that you can avoid the snakes.

When seen in this light, the game appears to be ethically rather questionable as a game for children. As a preparation for adulthood, it unfortunately brings a rather too accurate mirror of life of many segments of our society, and has a particular relevance to what happens at the start of each New Year.

The energy of competitive pushing, of winners and losers, of climbing ‘lucky’ ladders to beat opponents and avoiding ‘unlucky’ snakes for oneself, while hoping that opponents are caught by them instead, the adrenalin rush, the competitive edge – it’s all there! So exciting… so ugly.

Is this ugliness what we avoid being aware of as we claim to be letting go of the old and bringing in the new? That we have lived another year and we, in ourselves, have changed not a jot and that, in effect, we are ringing out the old and ringing in the… old, so it’s all… old?

Does our maladaptive end of year behaviour simply set us up for yet another annual game of Snakes and Ladders? Could our New Year greeting be more accurately articulated as “Happy Old Year?”

A common image of the turn of the year is often that of a seriously stooped over old man with a walking stick, giving way to a newborn baby, a symbol of hope. But by the end of the year, the baby always looks the same and has become the seriously stooped over old man again. Evidently, hope changes nothing.

Letting go of the old… and ringing in the new.

So what would make a lasting change?

What would make a change where we could honestly look ourselves in the eye and know for sure that we have evolved, that we are entering a new year cycle and that, in truth, not only as Einstein asserted “God does not play dice with the Universe”, we do not have to either.

The only true source for change and evolution I have found in the five decades of my life is that presented by Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine.

Universal Medicine presents that each year is an opportunity for us to acknowledge where we are as a marker, a reference point if you will, of our energetic development as a loving human being. It is a time to reflect on how we have deepened in our expression of love for ourselves and for others.

How much more of myself have I expressed this year and shared this expression with everyone, so that we are all more? To what extent have I accepted the expressions of love offered to me by others? These are questions I choose to ask myself.

Moreover, Universal Medicine presents that each year has its own specific quality of energy to which we can align, if that is our choice.

The choice to align with this energy places one’s personal rhythms within a larger context, which encompasses us all.

I feel a strong sense of purpose with this. I feel in this a connection with my fellow human beings, all seven billion of us, a connection that is decidedly absent in competitive situations where there has to be a winner and many, many losers.

In the Universal Medicine paradigm, we are all offered the same choices in complete equality.

As I see it, the choices for me are quite simple:

• “Snakes and Ladders,” or a continued expansion of myself in love.
• A game of apparent chance, with snakes, or a life with purpose and connection with everyone.
• Celebrating a new inclusive, expansive cycle, while building upon the passing cycle, or “Happy Old Year.”

In a very literal sense, this is for me definitely a ‘no brainer.’

For me, the only way worthy of my consideration is the way set forth by Universal Medicine and its main presenter, Serge Benhayon.

So… Snakes and Ladders or Evolution? Happy New Year!

By Coleen