May This new year be filled with peace of heart and peace of mind…

The mists, gentle rain, pulsing winds and shining light of this corner of the world fill my heart’s cup. This is Middle Earth, with friendly hobbits, wizards and elves living in the timeless forest, freely offering sweet potions of wisdom and blessings to all.

As this new year begins, my resolutions swirl around my feet and float up above my shoulders, caressing me into feeling more faith in myself. Yes, I will (fill in the blank) and yes, I will (fill in the blank) etc. We’ll see how it goes.

A Sufi teaching says that gratitude is the key to will —and while I don’t yet understand that exactly, I am teasing out possible meanings. Steeping ourselves in gratitude – authentically counting our blessings: for life, for health, for shelter, for birdsong, clearly empowers us, if only to get up and out of bed in the morning!

To start the New Year, I also like to reflect quietly, and re-read passages from some of my favorite works. This year it’s Turgenev’s First Love, Erich Fromm’s The Art of Loving, and Muslim Sufi mystic Inayat Khan’s unique symphony of truths, Vadan: “True love is without beginning or end…it is willing surrender…It is love that teaches us, Thou, not I.”

Following a theme of love and renewal, my favorite Pablo Neruda poem, from Extravagaria, has swum to the surface of my consciousness, so I’ll share it here:

This is where we live

I am one of those that live
in the middle of the sea and close to the twilight
a little beyond those stones.

When I came
and saw what was happening
I decided on the spot.

The day had spread itself
and everything was light
and the sea was beating
like a salty lion,
many-handed.

All that deserted space was singing
and I, lost and awed,
looking toward the silence,
opened my mouth and said:
“Mother of the foam,
expansive solitude,
here I will begin my own rejoicing,
my particular poetry.”

From then on I was never
let down by a single wave.
I always found the flavour of the sky
in the water, in the earth,
and the wood and the sea burned together
through the lonely winters.

I am grateful to the earth
for having waited
for me
when sky and sea came together
like two lips touching;
for that’s no small thing, no? –
to have lived
through one solitude to arrive at another,
to feel oneself many things and recover wholeness.

I love all the things there are,
and of all fires
love is the only inexhaustible one;
and that’s why I go from life to life,
from guitar to guitar,
and I have no fear
of light or of shade
and almost being earth myself,
I spoon away at infinity.

So no one can ever fail
to find my doorless numberless house –
there between dark stones,
facing the flash
of the violent salt,
there we live, my lover and I,
there we take root,
Grant us help then.
Help us to be more of the earth each day!
Help us to be
more the sacred foam,
more the swish of the wave!