This year shall be a peaceful New Year...

This year shall be a peaceful New Year...

Goodbye to the mind-cracking chaos of 2022.

I have tried the marches, followed the news in an incessant loop, wrote postcards to encourage voters until my wrists ached up my arms, stayed sleeplessly wide wake into the early morning hours, running as a worn ribbon over and over, the rationale for, the potential solutions for, inexplicable estrangements, hatred, violence, hunger, pain, lay wide eyed in wonder and horror at the sheer grit and grieving there in Ukraine, there in Afghanistan, and here, on stateside borders. Watched impotently, recycling my cans and paper and plastic, as tempestuous storms rose and buildings crashed and then guns fired and lives fell and children huddled in classrooms and too many police confoundingly lost their compass. I have tried to take it all in, to translate it all into some sort of sanity, to find a path in the darkness, even for myself and too often, found the ceaseless whirring of my mind in those looping paths to no answers… and so…I have decided that it is my inner sense that has been askew - Finally realizing that I cannot control but I can manage. I can manage. And so.....

This year shall be a peaceful New Year. I shall drink some simple coffee with sweet cream from a heavy cup whose heft fits my hand – I shall allow pleasure in whatever form it appears. I shall see the spectacular marvel of a single raindrop as it joins its collective, I shall know the wonders I cannot see of savannahs, seas and arctic circles, of birds flashing in the midnight skies and all creatures, in all places doing their natural creaturely things. I shall hear the joyful cries of newborn babes and not permit misery, no matter how horrific, to obliviate joy. I shall comfort where I can and bring compassion in any way I can to all that suffer. Yet, this year, I shall humbly acknowledge my limitations as one single creature on this teeming planet and I shall choose to know with the certainty of belief that all will be well even when it is so clearly not – I shall choose to believe that the path forward is one of peace, and that love, compassion and calm is the only way through – and whether there come sunshine or darkness, whether the skies storm or clear and shine in glorious splendor there shall be light … in me.

If it shall come to pass that each of us cherish and protect and refuse to extinguish our own spark of light – Ah that would be quite something would it not? I wish for each and all the joy of your own indomitable, light and that 2023 shall shine with our colossal connection as each day unfolds. With love to you and yours and to each and all. Happy 2023.