We’re closer to the new year…but not close enough for a midnight post. So, random thoughts it will be…for now.
I went on a walk today that turned into more of a run. Cast a passing glance at a puddle, more to avoid and ice-cold and wet foot for the remainder of my trotting wander through the neighborhood. Went several yards beyond it before I stopped. Turned around. Took a picture that makes me smile.
For dinner…I ate the best piece of pizza I’ve had in a very long time — made from scratch by my friend Chadwick, eaten among friends around the big dining room table.
Went bowling. It’s funny game, bowling, that begins with the communal experience of terribly uncomfortable neon-laced shoes. Then you find a ball that is neither to heavy nor too light and somehow manage to roll it down the lane, hurling toward a bunch of pins. Try as you might to send the thing off without looking like a complete idiot or falling on your face…you still end up (or, uh…maybe this is just me) wiggling and leaning and twisting your feet in odd directions to steer to ball telepathically toward the pins. I’ve never been very good at these kinds of things, but am apparently better than I thought. I beat the boys :)
It’s hard to follow Tree of Life (the movie) while typing out random thoughts for this blog post. So I will stop typing now…and come back for a New Years’ blessing.
. . .
2012 is upon us. A blessing on this new beginning from John O’Donohue:
For a New Beginning
In out-of-the-way places of the heart,
Where your thoughts never think to wander,
This beginning has been quietly forming,
Waiting until you were ready to emerge.
For a long time it has watched your desire,
Feeling the emptiness growing inside you,
Noticing how you willed yourself on,
Still unable to leave what you had outgrown.
It watched you play with the seduction of safety
And the gray promises that sameness whispered,
Heard the waves of turmoil rise and relent,
Wondered would you always live like this.
Then the delight, when your courage kindled,
And out you stepped onto new ground,
Your eyes young again with energy and dream,
A path of plenitude opening before you.
Though your destination is not yet clear
You can trust the promise of this opening;
Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning
That is at one with your life’s desire.
Awaken your spirit to adventure;
Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk;
Soon you will be home in a new rhythm,
For your soul senses the world that awaits you.
