This article was written by Ray Brimble,

local businessman and former iACT board member

The last few days of each year present us with an interesting mental and spiritual construct because the calendar tells us that we are living in a kind of “frontier” between the past – the year now ending- and the future, that is the year about to begin.  Frontiers are a “geography” of the edges of the worlds we know, fascinating because they hint at a region between the known, and the unknown.

While we think of frontiers as physical borders and regions, they are as much about what goes on in our heads and hearts.  The geography of this kind of frontier is defined by our ability to comprehend the “new”.  The border of the new is our “fin del mundo”. The “edge of our world”.
We all should find our own ” fin del mundo” a few times in our lives. It can be a fascinating and terrifying experience while also illuminating and gratifying.  The signpost for arrival at your own personal “fin del mundo” is very distinct – it is when you feel that there is no way forward, and no way back.  Once you have reached this conclusion, you are at your “fin”. The Spanish word “Fin” can be translated not only as the “end”, but also, the “edge”.  This distinction allows one to traverse the frontier because an edge is not a limit, but rather a barrier to be overcome.

Can you peer over the edge? Are you witness to your doubts and fears at the moment of your arrival there? Will you devise a crossing despite all evidence that it may lead to your demise?
There is an old Native American saying which goes a long way toward explaining how tribes traversed their own frontiers, real and imagined:  “Along the path in every person’s life, appears a chasm that looks too wide the cross.  Leap. It’s not as far as you think”.

Finding your “fin del mundo” and surviving the “leap” is about expanding the geography of your

mind and your heart, and pushing out those edges.

The controversial but far reaching Spanish king, Carlos V, who pushed the edges of humanity in the early 16th century while presiding over both the exploration of the New World and the Renaissance, had a personal moniker, “Plus Ultra” (“There is More”). This expresses the courage to peer over one’s own “fin del mundo” and to make the leap.  There is always more.  No matter what you think you know, you don’t know all of it.  No matter what has been done before, it has not all been done. There is no “end”, only an edge. Sometimes, a leap can get you to the other side.

In these waning days of 2016, what can we imagine might lie on the other side of another “fin” – in this case, the “fin del ano” (New Year’s Eve)? Perhaps we can take a moment to consider what we are leaping from, and to.   I leave you with a verse from T.S. Elliot’s Four Quartets:

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time

Happy New Year to all, and wishing you a very good Leap!