This morning as I made the coffee, read the paper and viewed the evidence in our now quite, slightly disheveled house, that last night was indeed a New Year Celebration, I wondered how this day, this celebration becomes such a bookmark in our lives. Every minute that passes ushers us into history, every proceeding second pulls us into our future, but somehow this trip from "then" to "now" goes unrecorded most of our lives. No this day is needed. Together with friends and strangers we gather to eat, drink and laugh. We joke about how quickly our resolutions will fall by the wayside, another wreck of happless renewal, and yet it is this very ritual that will be memorialized as the moment we passed from 2005 into 2006. Last year we took that trip from "then" to "now" 31,536,000 times, but this is the one we will remember.

Will there be renewal? Well yes, we cannot help but move forward, but this "time" we are conscious of the people and ideals that make up our life and we carry them across this "new" threshold knowing we are not alone. We do not exist merely to procreate, and amuse ourselves. We exist as an intergral part of each of those around us. In a small way, at that moment we sense our connection to and cooperation with all life. We have moved from "then" to "now" intact.