By Irene Conlan -

I don’t think you can call what’s happening here an article – it is more like musings – a hodge podge of thoughts about the new year.

It is very quiet this morning. Except for some screaming sirens that seemed to cry endlessly before their sound faded away, there have been few sounds to break the stillness. What were the sirens heralding? A wreck? A fire? It sounded like a number of units responded to the call for help. Someone’s new year is off to a shaky start at best or a tragic beginning at worst. Something in me hopes it was a false alarm and something in me knows it was not. I pray. I send my angels to them. I send love and light.

I love the silence. In my younger days I had to have the TV on whether I was watching it  or not or I played continuous music – anything to break the silence that seemed to command me to examine my life. Across the years there has been a reckoning – not a big formal confrontation of myself with myself – but a gradual, almost unnoticed coming to terms with myself. Peace began to settle in when I began to meditate. I did work with brain waves and tapes, light and sound – I love this kind of thing – and didn’t notice what was taking place within me. I’m certainly not finished. Anyone who knows me will tell you  I’m still in the product testing lab and yet I have come to be at peace with me and with those around me. Now I am comfortable in the silence.

I’ve been thinking about  what to me are the most important occurrences of the past ten years. What has happened in the first decade of this new millennium that is worth mentioning? My list probably won’t agree with anyone else’s but it’s my list and my picks. I’d love to hear yours. I think of several:

• The growth of the Internet that made it possible to interact with people all over the planet with a single keystroke. Information, whether true or false, can be passed across the planet in a very short period of time. It has created a whole new batch of scam and scam artists to be aware of and, at the same time has put wonderful information at our fingertips. We have had a mixing of cultures unheard of and impossible in the past and, hopefully, we have all grown from it. As more people gain access in the future, the effect will be even more profound.
• The cell phone  has changed us worldwide  both for better and worse. Information can be passed along quickly but there’s no place to go to get away from it. Some people seem to have the phone growing out of an ear or glued to their fingers while they text frantically. When is there time to think? The phones now do everything from send and receive calls, to making dinner reservations and quizzing us to see if we’re too drunk to drive. They get our emails, check on our stocks and play our favorite music. As American Express says, “Don’t leave home without it.”
• The growing popularity of meditation. It is no longer just a “religious” practice. It is used to commune with the Divine, yes, but it is also used to help get us centered, grounded, calm, unstressed and creative. It is being taught and used even in major corporations to help the executives be less stressed and more productive. It is a magnificent tool.
• The research on the chemicals of emotion and thought that help us understand more about the human being and how incredibly complex and holistic we are. Chemicals of thought and emotions are found in every cell of the body, etc. . The understanding and wider acceptance of the power of thought has also come into the forefront and the idea of “manifesting” has people abuzz. Actually, the scientists are discovering what the mystics have know across the centuries.
• YouTube takes us from the ridiculous to the sublime with some comedy in between within a few moments. You can get a cross section of life in a few moments and wander into some very bizarre territory letting you know clearly that we are not all the same.
• Positive Psychology that takes our focus away from “what’s wrong with me” to “what’s right with me.” What a difference a thought makes!

This is just a beginning of my list but it looks like electronics head my list so far.  I will mull on it a while longer.

Now I have to go find some breakfast and get settled in for the Rose Bowl Parade, some football and a day of quietly enjoying this first day of 2010.

Happy New Year to you all.