Is This the End Times?
Lately, especially after the week we've all lived through, I’ve been thinking about the essay I wrote two years ago. Sadly, the grief and heartbreak I felt then still echo — maybe even more sharply now. So I returned to these words with a sore spirit and a steady hand. I’ve updated this essay slightly, but the message remains: tender, raw, and fiercely determined.
As always, thank you for reading, commenting, and supporting Because Life is Messy… It means a great deal that we are traveling together, taking time to sift through the mess and discover the gold.
From the world of the senses, Arjuna, comes heat and comes cold, and pleasure and pain. They come and they go: they are transient. Arise above them, strong soul. 1
We humans are hardwired to experience everything: the heat, the cold, pleasure, and pain. It all comes and goes, sometimes lingering longer than we’d prefer. But none of it lasts forever. Our work is to face it. To endure with courage while also softening, not shattering. That’s the path. 2
Sunset Girl, Sunrise Soul
I used to be a sunset girl, especially after living in Arizona for so many years, where the skies blaze like the canvas of an abstract painting. Many an evening, I’d sit in stillness on the back patio, letting calm settle over me. I mean, who wouldn’t?
But now that I no longer live in the Grand Canyon State, I’ve become a sunrise kind of gal. Sitting in my darkened study, corner lamp turned low, blinds half-drawn, I wait in quiet anticipation for the fiery show to begin.
Maybe it’s because sunrise feels like hope to me. All the clichés—‘it’s a new day, a fresh start, today is the first day of the rest of your life’. The kind of platitudes I once dismissed now feel weightier. Wondering if perhaps there’s a kernel of truth hidden within?
When the Light Doesn’t Come Easy
Yet this morning, I can’t sit still. Morning pages will have to wait. Meditation? Not happening. My breath is tight, my heart’s pounding. Even breath awareness feels like a strain.
While I sit in the still-dark room, waiting for dawn, I realize I’m once again gobsmacked by grief. Heartsick. A fresh wave of sorrow and horror crashes over me, for the countless people who seem to have lost their moral compass. For a world teetering on the edge of forgetting its humanity. Somewhere in the back of my mind, the thought whispers, Is this the end times?
I grieve for the terror, the brutality, the dehumanization that precious human beings are enduring while I sit comfortably in my home. I mourn the loss of life, the attempted erasure of entire peoples — people who have every right to live free and safe, as I do. As you do. As we all do.
I grieve for what is happening in the country I love, which is shattering my already broken heart, watching in disbelief as it shifts and cracks and falls apart before my eyes.
So instead of trying to force myself to do my practices, I lean into the voice of
singing “Peaceable Kingdom.” It becomes my meditation. Her song, her words, her unmistakable voice—a prayer sent out into the ether. Still, a part of me wonders, Will we ever find this elusive kingdom of peace?Hoping for Hope
Sitting in the darkness, I long for the night sky to shift. For that tender hue of lavender to rise. For the sun to remind me that maybe, just maybe, those tired old clichés are seeded with potential. Like a lifeboat in stormy waters, I cling to the possibility—it is a new day.
Waiting for the light, I hope for hope. Is that even a thing? Hoping for hope?
I have to believe it is—that hope can be rekindled. Because without it, where are we?
The truth is, my relationship with hope has always been conflicted. The concept of hope is elusive, like a dream upon waking. Long ago, when asking one of my beloved teachers about hope, he responded, “Hope is what’s possible.” And that… that is what I’m clinging to.
One Kind Thing
As the light begins to streak across the sky with shades of pink and orange, I still don’t know how to stop the hatred. I don’t know how to halt the violence, the disregard for human life. And it hurts—a cancer festering in the bones of our humanity.
I can’t fix the world today. But I sure as hell can show up with heart. Even in the ache, I believe in the power of doing one small act of kindness. No matter how seemingly insignificant, one small act of kindness.
I invite you to join me in doing one kind thing for someone else. Today, tomorrow, the next day. Offer a moment of joy. A sliver of light. A balm. A blessing.
Sit With the Grief, Rise with the Light
Allow yourself to sit with the sorrow. Weep. Rage. Don’t hide from the grief. Meet the world as you are. Bruised, tired, heart-split open.
And when you can, pick yourself up off the floor. Breathe. Then face the world—with all its chaos and complexity—with lovingkindness.
While it often feels like this is the end times, I don’t believe that’s the whole story. In the yogic tradition, this is known as the Kali Yuga—the age of darkness. A time when structures crumble, deceit thrives, and truth feels obscured.
Yes, even now, we teeter at the edge of the Satya Yuga—the age of truth. The dawning of something new. A return to integrity, reverence, and deeper consciousness. Where our interconnectedness is not just remembered, but lived.
It may seem impossible. Naïve even.
But I urge you to remember the void of night—and how it always, slowly, gives way to light.
I believe a peaceable kingdom is possible. It begins with you and me.
Question for the Comments:
Where in your own life are you being called to be a light — even when the darkness feels overwhelming?
Chapter 2 Verse 14 from The Bhagavad Gita translation by Juan Mascaro.
Chapter 2 Verse 14, my rendition.
Beautifully expressed & felt Paulette, thank you ❤️🩹
That deeply resonated with how I am feeling some days.
We need to be the light in this darkness, whatever the outcome.
I am definitely a sunset gal x
BEAUTIFUL, Paulette, I'm so glad you reposted this.