New year
In threshold places, where endings meet beginnings,
we are invited to listen backward as we move forward.
What can we learn from the year past –
from how evil played its cards,
or from relationships gained and lost?
What brought you deep delight,
when everything was swirling?
To whom were you able to turn to
and what challenged you to grow?
Individually and collectively,
none of us are the same.
For some of these changes we weep
and for others we rejoice
but from each we carry something forward
– a feeling, a lesson, a memory, a challenge,
a call to solidarity…
Collectively, we acknowledge a kind of closing
and a fresh start that offers only
as much meaning as we need from it.
Inviting us not to wage war on ourselves,
but just to pause
and pay attention to our longings.
A new year does not need to mean “a new you.”
You do not need to make demands of yourself
grounded in messages that are only meant
to make you feel inadequate or unlovable.
Your worth is ineffable,
that is a constant that carries from year to year.
Move gently with yourself into 2019,
speaking instead words of possibility,
committing to that which calls you,
letting yourself be lured by the Sacred
towards your own becoming.
Make only resolutions that will lead
to more flourishing of life, yours and others.
Reject individualistic notions of
what will lead to “success”
and channel your growing
in the directions
of what we can become
of what we can create
of what we can divest from
of what we must claim
of what we must fight
of how we might love
Together.