Why not believe in magic?
Can I soften? Can I soften some more?
Does truth exist? How are stones alive?
What if I never learn
what happens when we die?
What’s the next nice thing
I can do for someone else?
What’s for breakfast? What’s at stake?
When I dream of my beloveds, is it them?
Where am I in my own way?
How might I be more river, less dam?
Which comes first, forgiveness or the peace?
Which comes last, unknowing or the known?
What is love? What is now? What is home?
What is it in us that knows how to wonder?
What is it in us that knows how to grow?
Who are we really? What is courage?
What’s worth it? What’s asked of me now?
Should I be in this moment a blade or a bloom?
What’s the nature of higher ground?
Can I ask without longing for answers?
Can I feel I am one with it all?
How does life live through me?
Can I be in service to that?
What do I believe I can’t give away?
What if I say nothing and listen?
Will I choose awe today?
Posts Tagged ‘new year’
Questions for the New Year
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged new year, questions on January 1, 2024| 17 Comments »
On the First Day of the New Year
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged body, new year, stress, twist, yoga on January 2, 2023| 2 Comments »
On the First Day of the New Year
I twist.
My knees
go right,
my gaze
goes left.
I pause
like this—
in deep
release,
wring out
old stress
like water.
I inhale
and lengthen,
exhale, squeeze.
How quickly
new thoughts
rush in.
I twist
again.
One Peacefulness
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged breath, new year, quiet on January 1, 2023| 8 Comments »
so quietly this new year
slips through midnight—
our breath the most precious of cheers
At the Edge of a New Year
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged future, grief, new year, self acceptance, time on December 31, 2022| 8 Comments »
I think of a year ago
and all I did not know.
I do not hold my innocence
against myself.
If there is a future me,
I toast her tonight.
May she look back at me
as I light this white candle
and whisper love into the flame.
May her thoughts be generous
as she remembers
how it is to live
with this heart,
both ruined
and burnished by loss.
As I toe the edge of the year,
the edge of the moment,
I imagine her waiting
on the other side, saying,
Jump, sweetheart, jump,
I’ve got you.
Or perhaps she says
nothing at all,
but stands there as I do now
looking back,
arms impossibly open.
With Violet Petals Strewn Around
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged body, cleansing, new year, ritual, self care, trust on January 2, 2022| 4 Comments »
Somehow the body knows what it needs.
Like how, minutes after the change of the year,
I find myself in the hot shower washing off
the old year’s skin with a violet sugar scrub.
I didn’t plan to scrape away the self
that no longer fits, but here I am,
sharp crystals in hand, my everywhere
feeling the tingle, the thrilling sting of the new.
What magic a simple ritual can do.
Can’t change the losses, no,
but I feel surprisingly willing to meet it all
as I step lighter, softer, back into the world.
For Auld Lang Syne
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged cup, friendship, new year on January 1, 2021| 4 Comments »
We’ll drink a cup of kindness yet,
says the song, and I would give you
the cup, friend, would fill it
with whiskey or water or whatever
would best meet your thirst.
I fill it with the terrifying beauty
of tonight’s bonfire—giant licks
of red and swirls of blue that consume
what is dead and melt the ice
and give warmth to what is here.
I fill it with moonrise and snow crystal
and the silver river song beneath the ice.
With the boom of fireworks and with laughter
that persists through tears. With
Lilac Wine and Over the Rainbow and Fever.
I toast you with all the poems we’ve yet to write
and all the tears we’ve yet to weep,
I hold the cup to your lips,
this chalice of kindness, we’ll drink it yet,
though the days are cold, the nights so long.
Bonfire in the Heart
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged change, fire, new year, transformation on December 24, 2020| 6 Comments »
I throw in any tallies
I’ve been keeping,
the ones that record
who did what and when.
I throw in all the letters
I wrote in my head but didn’t send.
I throw in tickets I didn’t buy
to places I didn’t visit.
I throw in all those expectations
I had for myself and the world last year
and countless lists of things I thought I should do.
I love watching them ignite,
turn into embers, to ash.
I love the space they leave behind
where anything can happen.
One Old Lang Syne
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged new year, poem, poetry, quiet on January 1, 2020| 2 Comments »
The Next Storm Comes
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beginnings, magic, new year, poem, poetry, snow, storm on December 31, 2018| 4 Comments »
And suddenly you know: It’s time to start something new and trust the magic of beginnings.
—Meister Eckhart
And suddenly you know it’s time
to shovel the drive. For though snow
still falls, at this moment it’s only
three inches deep and you can still push it easily
with your two wide yellow shovels.
Yes, it’s time to start something new—
though it doesn’t feel new, this
shoving snow from one place to another.
In fact, your shoulders still feel
the efforts of yesterday.
But with each push of the shovels,
the path on the drive is new again. At least
it’s new for a moment, new until snow
fills it in. Then it’s a different kind of new.
How many beginnings are like this?
They don’t feel like beginnings at all?
Or we miss their newness?
Or they feel new only for a moment
before they’ve lost their freshness?
There is magic in beginnings, says Meister Eckhart,
and sometimes we see beginnings all around us,
a new path, a new promise, a new meal.
A new prayer. New snow fall. A new song.
Is it too grand to call it magic, this new calendar year?
Too grand to call it magic, this momentary
clearing on the drive? Too grand to be magic,
this momentary clearing in my thoughts?
Or is it exactly, perhaps, what magic is—
something we allow ourselves to believe,
despite logic, despite reason, something that brings
us great pleasure, makes us question
what we thought we knew, our sense
of what is possible changed.
One on the Eve of the New Year
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged moon, new year, poem, poetry, surrender on January 1, 2018| 2 Comments »