Overjoyed (Christine Kane)

I've always loved the week between Christmas and New Year's Day; very chill, peaceful, quiet.  It's not quite the respite it used to be, now that I'm older, not to mention retired... but I still use it to recalibrate from the holiday chaos to hanging new calendars in my kitchen as well as my home office.  

I've done lots of reading, made easy-peasy meals, caught up on some off-beat holiday movies, enjoyed phone calls with friends who live close by as well as those who reside across state lines.  Today was Garden Day, always a delight... and tomorrow I'll finalize the Caring Community newsletter and maybe even prepare my holiday cards for mailing.  It is all good... 💖

In these last few days of 2022, I am embracing my imperfections, in awe of my flaws, counting my blessings, and creating my vision of what I want in the next 365 days... for myself, for my community, and for the world around me.

From the ever-wise Donna Ashworth:

Why do we start a new year, with promises to improve?

Who began this tradition of never-ending pressure?

I say, the end of a year, should be filled with congratulation, for all we survived.

And I say a new year should start with promises to be kinder to ourselves, to understand better just how much we bear, as humans on this exhausting treadmill of life.

And if we are to promise more, let’s pledge to rest, before our bodies force us.

Let’s pledge to stop, and drink in life as it happens.

Let’s pledge to strip away a layer of perfection to reveal the flawed and wondrous humanity we truly are inside.

Why start another year, gifted to us on this earth, with demands on our already over-strained humanity.

When we could be learning to accept, that we were always supposed to be imperfect.

And that is where the beauty lives, actually.

And if we can only find that beauty, we would also find peace.

I wish you peace in 2023.

Everything else is all just a part of it.

Let it be so.

SONG:  Overjoyed by Christine Kane

BOOK:  How to Kiss the Universe: An Inspirational Spiritual and Metaphysical Narrative about Human Origin, Essence and Destiny by Jozef Simkovic  

POEM:  Imaginary Conversation by Linda Pastan

You tell me to live each day

as if it were my last. This is in the kitchen

where before coffee I complain

of the day ahead—that obstacle race

of minutes and hours,

grocery stores and doctors.

But why the last? I ask. Why not

live each day as if it were the first—

all raw astonishment, Eve rubbing

her eyes awake that first morning,

the sun coming up

like an ingénue in the east?

You grind the coffee

with the small roar of a mind

trying to clear itself. I set

the table, glance out the window

where dew has baptized every

living surface.

QUOTE(S):  "At midnight on New Year's Eve, open your front door and back door, saying:  blow out the old, blow in the new, blow out the false and blow in the true.  So Mote It Be!"

"Because true belonging only happens when we present our authentic, imperfect selves to the world, our sense of belonging can never be greater than our level of self-acceptance." ~ Brené Brown