As some of you who read this column with some regularity may have already surmised, I am a creature who holds a romantic fondness for ritual. Life, in essence, is measured through the passage of time and ritual. It not only illuminates and celebrates special passages but also offers the possibility of fashioning a certain continuity between the past and the future of life. My life is filled with rituals for I consciously make an effort to transform life's mundane routines into rituals and to mark and celebrate those once-in-a-lifetime moments that connect me to time scales greater than my own life span. One such moment was the arrival of the New Millennium.

Christmas 1989 found me between jobs, between families, between marriages and between loves. What I needed was an adventure. An opportunity was presented by my friend and travel agent, Carol, who was leading a trip to Rome for the holidays. New Years in Rome - how exciting! The first moment of the first day of the first year of the last decade of the 20th Century and the end of the Second Millennium - this passage seemed worthy of attention and celebration.

We flew into Rome on Christmas Day and enjoyed the sights for two days. I then parted from the group to visit family in Ancona where, one evening, my cousin Anna Grazzia, took me shopping for appropriate attire. My cousin is quite good at shopping and seemed to enjoy it immensely. Under her guidance, we arrived at a small shop near the port section of the city where I plunked down more money than I had ever spent on any suit for a Giorgio Armani tuxedo.

The New Year celebration was held in a splendidly restored Baroque theater in an old part of Rome called Trastevere. The evening was a magical mix of Italian cabaret theatre, luscious seven course meal with as many wines, elegant international company, Champaign, dancing, and general revelry and me in my Giorgio Armani. What an evening - a most memorable marking of the moment. Shortly after our return to the States, I began a conversation with Carol to plan a trip to Rome for New Year 2000 and, sure enough, 10 years later, there I was in St. Peter's Square in my Giorgio Armani toasting in the New Year, the New Century and the New Millennium with the Pope's blessing, fireworks, Patty and 40,000 Italians and international visitors. Now, as the end of 2007 approaches, plans for New Year 2010 are already under way. A most grand and consequently rewarding ritual.

Why Green? "Why Green" was the title of the first article of this column written on October 14, 2006. Writing this column has become a ritual with a biweekly cycle. The ritual is perpetual and traces over all of my other activities. Celebration is in order at each completion and delivery to the editor even if a day late. The work begins anew only a few days later with the gathering of thoughts and ideas for the next one. I think about it often and try many ideas on for size. I talk to friends. I discuss it with Patty. I wring my hands. I ruminate. I procrastinate. Then at the last moment, usually in the early morning hours, I write it and send it in always reserving the right to make last minute changes prior to publication. So why do I do it? There are probably a myriad of reasons both intentional and sublimated yet I can tell you that it's definitely not the money. Rather, I am motivated by a vision that this New Millennium has indeed ushered in a new world. At the turn of the last century, the Eiffel Tower became the symbol of industrialized change that completely transformed all aspects of life and thought. This century, the planet is becoming the symbol for even greater change looming our way that will make demands on us all. The world will be a very different place at the end of the 21st Century than it is today. Perhaps, like no other time in history, man's destiny will be determined by his individual and collective action. Change is inevitable. It will come to those who embrace and those who resist. I choose embrace.