Open up to a New Year and A New You.
When I mentioned to my students and friends that I wasn’t going to be in Florida on New Year’s Eve, to host my Annual Spiritual Meditation & Chanting of Mantras to bring the New Year, they were curious to know why.
I said, “I’ll be in the Big Apple.” They immediately said, “Time Square to watch the Big Ball drop?”
Time Square’s New Year’s Eve celebration has been regarded as one of the most notable celebrations of the New Year internationally; but to tell you the truth, this event was never on my bucket list.
There will be thousands of people gathered to see the ball descending 141 feet in the last minute of the year 2019 and to announce the birth of 2020! Even though I am going to avoid the traffic jams and the crowds, I was quite curious to know how the whole thing got started.
The very first ball drop event in New York took place on December 31st, 1907. Mr.Adolph Ochs, the then-owner of The New York Times newspaper started the whole thing. He hired a New York designer to design a time ball. It was wood and iron that composed the very first ‘time-ball’ and it shone brightly as it had a hundred light bulbs. It weighed an astonishing 705.5 pounds and measured almost five foot in diameter. It took the efforts of six people to hoist the ball onto the flagpole of the building, and once up there on the rooftop, the ball was set to run an electrical circuit and light up a sign that was to announce the first strike of the New Year.
It sounded like fun for me to see the big ball drop in person and bring in 2020, but friends who live in the city weren’t the least bit interested. They are expecting more than 100,000 thousand people and it’s cold, plus they tell me it’s exhausting to be on the streets any where in Manhattan on New Year’s Eve. So even though it sparked my interested I’ll be joining a celebration with Amanbir Singh and Siri Sat Kaur to set our intentions, raise our frequencies for the New Year, and accelerate this transformation into 2020. They plan Kundalini Yoga, meditation, a gong bath and chanting way into the midnight hour.
Kundalini Yoga as taught by Yogi Bhajan® is considered the most comprehensive of yoga traditions, combining meditation, mantra, physical exercises and breathing techniques; it is a Raj Yoga, and back in the early seventies I was totally into doing Kundalini Yoga 6 days a week.
When I went to the Summer Solstice Yoga Bhajan gave me the spiritual name of Yogi Singh and upon his instructions, I started teaching when I lived in Colorado. “Kundalini” literally means “the curl of the lock of hair of the beloved.” This poetic metaphor alludes to the flow of energy and consciousness that exists within each of us, I decided to return to one of my first yoga experienced to bring me into 2020.
I am no longer teaching, but Kundalini has a special place in my heart and soul that was instrumental in my growth.
I wish you the best in your Health, Wealth and Happiness!
Dr. Wu Dhi (Yogi Singh retired)
Sherwood (Woody) Swartz AP, MMQ
