Today, as January, with its initial burst of the New Year, is drawing to a close, we can slowly slip back into cultural cross-currents that bury our positive possibilities in the highlights of negative news, conflict and blame. One way to move pass such tension is to ignore it for a while to re-focus on what is personally uplifting for you. While we don't magically erase, or completely withdraw from the human struggle around us, we can restore a sense of balance to life. That balance provides stability; stability is a platform where we are grounded enough to take leaps into the Creative, the Unknown, even the over-arching experience of Allness. In other words, there is a process at work here--a collective agreement of a "New Year", full of celebration and excitement, followed by waves of struggle with ourselves and each other, with situations, belief systems, and exploitation of the opening that a new year brings. We are prone to winter withdrawal. We can retreat to hopelessness, or back to our previous patterns of routine, or we can retreat to nurture ourselves and our close circle, restoring balance as a more stable platform.
Last November, I posted a link for the short poem "It's Yours" by Larry Morris. Here it is in Facebook format:
"What is coming to you
Is already in you
Awaiting its moment."
It's a perfect description of the spiritual path with all it's twists and turns and moments of awakening. Awakening, although we call paradoxically call it "new", is not new. It has always been with you, in you, is you.
Yesterday, I vowed I would go for a walk. The short, very busy days of December and January had taken away my walks. Now it was warm and sunny. I couldn't slip away from my computer until almost 3 p.m., but finally I went outside. I headed for my favorite route, not far, along a treelined street and up to another--a quaint, winding side street bordered by giant, aged, twisting oak trees and cobble stone walls. There are blooming bushes--red, orange, yellow petals that float on the air. I had barely turned the corner when I felt the rush of nature's kind energy enfolding me. The tree limbs arch across the street and form a canopy with their partner trees on the other side, further pulling all things into their care. Incredibly tall, lustrous pine trees with a magnificent mountain behind them, greet you as you round the corner. "THIS is what I needed," echoed inside me. I had thought I needed to stretch these stiff legs of a digital lifestyle, but this was not about physical exercise. This was my New Year moment. May today bring yours. If not, remember it is already in you. Your moment will come. (Susan Nettleton)
For poetry: https://allpoetry.com/.../14326744-Longing-is-like-the...
https://wordsfortheyear.com/.../invitation-by-mary-oliver/
https://allpoetry.com/poem/8498543-Change-by-Kathleen-Raine
For Jack Correu's post on the New Year: https://hillsidesource.com/little-shack-begins-the-new-year