A New Year

“We bless this year for all we learned,
For all we loved and lost
And for the quiet way it brought us nearer to our invisible destination.”
- John O’Donahue, 1956-2008 (An ex Catholic priest, Irish poet and philosopher. This is the last verse from the poem “At the End of the Year").

I always look forward to the beginning of a new year. Not for resolution making, but for reflection. I enjoy taking some time now that the busyness of the holidays is behind me to reflect back over the previous year. I remember all the people or situations that taught me a thing or two and I give thanks for the many blessings in my life, as well as the many challenges. Honestly though, going through the low moments I was anything but thankful. Let’s see, frustrated, disappointed, angry and sad would be more like it. But working through these feelings, to the best of my ability, strengthened me both emotionally and spiritually, and for that I am truly grateful.

The New Year brings a fresh sheet of paper, ready for life to be written on it. I say, “Bring it on!”

“I would love to live like a river flows, carried by the surprise of its own unfolding.” – John O’Donohue

Happy New Year!

Here is the uneditied piece of poetry:

At the End of the Year

The particular mind of the ocean
Filling the coastline's longing
With such brief harvest
Of elegant, vanishing waves
Is like the mind of time
Opening us shapes of days.

As this year draws to its end,
We give thanks for the gifts it brought
And how they became inlaid within
Where neither time nor tide can touch them.

The days when the veil lifted
And the soul could see delight;
When a quiver caressed the heart
In the sheer exuberance of being here.

Surprises that came awake
In forgotten corners of old fields
Where expectation seemed to have quenched.

The slow, brooding times
When all was awkward
And the wave in the mind
Pierced every sore with salt.

The darkened days that stopped
The confidence of the dawn.

Days when beloved faces shone brighter
With light from beyond themselves;
And from the granite of some secret sorrow
A stream of buried tears loosened.

We bless this year for all we learned,
For all we loved and lost
And for the quiet way it brought us
Nearer to our invisible destination.

~ John O'Donohue ~

(From the book, To Bless the Space Between Us)