Last week, on the longest night of the year, I said “… and now we are … here,” and we were. And now we find ourselves here … here again in that inbetween place … that place between the chaos & the quiet, between the dark & the light, here between the holidays of Christmas Day & New Year’s Day, between the icy cold and the warm rain that melts it away as if it never was. We find ourselves somewhere between the Milky Way and the Mountains, caught between what we meant to do and what we did, considering, perhaps, what it is we want to let go of and what it is we want to nurture and grow. Naomi Shihab Nye, as we might expect, expresses it beautifully in her poem, “Burning the Old Year”.
Burning the Old Year
Letters swallow themselves in seconds.
Notes friends tied to the doorknob,
transparent scarlet paper,
sizzle like moth wings,
marry the air.
So much of the year is flammable,
lists of vegetables, partial poems.
Orange swirling flame of days,
so little is a stone.
Where there was something and suddenly isn’t,
an absence shouts, celebrates, leaves a space.
I begin again with the smallest numbers.
Quick dance, shuffle of losses and leaves,
only the things I didn’t do
crackle after the blazing dies.
My favorite lines … where there was something and suddenly isn’t, / an absence shouts, celebrates, leaves a space. Again, that space in between. Always, if we allow ourselves to settle into it, there is that rich, fertile space in between. This week humans have been born and humans who were once precious newborns have died. It happens every day, every week, holiday or not. Sometimes the whiplash is enough to knock you out. But then, somehow … we begin again with the smallest numbers.
And may the coming year be one of hearty & (mostly) delicious soup that we’re “all in together”. I like to think of us burrowing our bare feet in the rich soil of more healing, more creativity, more peace & more hope. May we all know the blessings of good health laced with much love as we make our way into what is to be. See you in 2023! (at least, that’s my plan)
Today is here and today is now … we are together in the only time that really is. I invite you to take just a few minutes to visit the vastness of the Aurora borealis and the Milky Way and then drop back into the mountains of Central Oregon. It is with much gratitude that I get to share with you here the amazing photography of my old friend and once fellow colleague on the Friends of William Stafford board, Dennis Schmidling.
You can see more of Dennis’s work at the Sisters Arts Association.
Yes, we are in-between the past and the present, the old and the new, the up and down. It is a time to “act” not “react” with compassion, verve, and integrity. Patience amounts to status quo.
You are so very right! Actions fueled by the Heart … compassion, verve, integrity. Thank you for your thoughtful comment and may your 2023 be filled with them all.