Today we stand on the edge of time. Gazing over the cusp. I hold a looking glass in my hand, not to see into the future but to see into my heart. This looking glass only shows truth. I hold it steady gazing into my soul.
It’s been quite the time, the past 365 days. Rocks overturned, bridges rebuilt, new landscapes erected, thicker skin, deeper knowing, battle wounds, truer breath and clarity. The great sifting away of the mundane is taking place. Humanity is practicing the art of prioritizing the importance of truth, goodness and love.
Within the next 24 hours we step into a new calendar, a fresh start into the new year. In reality we are already walking in the new world. Our eyes are opened. Our way is more defined to include sustainability, survival and sureness of each step. The air holds expectancy laced with limitless possibilities. If we only get out of our own way. We continue to practice listening to our heart, not our fear. We continue to practice focusing on the good, not worrying about the what-if’s and the should’s.
It takes commitment to look into my soul and remember integrity defines me, not fear. My truths define me, not outside beliefs. I walk along side Great Spirit, Higher Power, God, Goddess and all that represents love and light. When I feel lost, it is I who has turned away from the light. Love’s presence is always there, always present, always holding space for me until I choose to come back. My way is always clear when I follow truth. There is no lack. There is only love.
I’m getting better at asking for help along my path. I remember always to begin with gratitude. If I lose my way there is always gratitude to find no matter my foggy thoughts. I ask for help. I ask for clarity. I ask for understanding. I ask for patience. I ask for comfort. Learning to ask for gifts is half the task. The other half is my willingness to stick around to receive them. I choose to be present. I choose to. I ask for gentleness if I am lost knowing I can find my way back to the rock of my integrity. It is there I find the seat of my soul.
I raise my eyes to the New Year. It holds new lessons, new insights, new friends, new challenges, new beginnings and new endings, all part of the ebb and flow of life. I raise my eyes beyond what my brain perceives and acknowledge there is more. I widen my arms to receive help from other beings, both embodied and nonembodied. I lift my chin to the world saying yes, I am ready to begin again and again and again, every sunrise, every sunset, every decision. No matter what path I take, I am learning. Every path leads me to more wisdom and I know wisdom is often gained through struggle and challenge. I am a survivor. I am a learner. I am a human. I am a soul. My spirit moves through both. My humanity and my soul rest in my silence. I am grateful I am listening.
As I stand upon the Earth with the light of the New Year dawning, I lift my face to welcome the rising sun grateful for the constancy of its radiant warmth that coaxes everything to grow.
I pray for a loving connection with all of creation, remembering that I share the sun’s infinite light with all living beings.
I pray to honor and release last year’s sorrows, to let go of separation and condemnation, to have faith in the essential goodness of all beings.
I pray to always live with an awareness of my original infinite nature, in gratitude for the abundance and beauty the Earth graciously bestows. In this New Year, and forever more, to walk forward in love toward the light.
Go deeper into prayer by reading “Breath as Prayer.”
Participants’ Reflections:
This group is a magnificent super-organism! Happy New Year!
Happy New Year and I share appreciation for each of you — beacons of light shining. Happy 2021 and a return to the Light.
You were channeling someone with that reading. This reading was truly inspired and moving. You have made my New Year’s Eve more complicated. Instead of doing some resolutions based on expectations, I have to work harder tonight and do ones based on expectancy and attitude. I don’t know whether to be happy or sad.
In thinking about gratitude, I concentrated on the richness of everyone in this group and how grateful I am. This is one of the best things that happened to me in 2020, this group. I have sadness about my friend who just moved to assisted living. Another friend reminds me that my sadness is because I loved so deeply. That has helped me when I think about my friend. When I think about sadness in general, it is a marker that says we have given of ourselves, and our hearts have conjoined with another person. There was a letter in the New York Times yesterday written by a young girl to herself that she can read later in order to remember how hard the pandemic was. In the letter, she talks about the fights she’s had with her mother because they’ve spent too much time together. She ends it by saying nothing in life is as important as people. She gets it. Thank you, fellow meditators. I’m being thankful for sadness even.
Thank you, that was an incredible reading. I loved the line I am grateful I am listening. I was also thinking about how my sadness and pain go along with the fact that I love. If you are going to love, you’ll experience loss and pain. I get to accept that because I am not giving up love and my ability to love. I have to accept the pain. This year for me, I have gained so much, I have lost so much. In reflecting on the Attar seven valleys, what I’ve learned is to give up other people’s values, give up reason, give up knowledge. Let go of all of those things. Let go in order to really know myself. The year coming up will be worse than this year. It’s going to be better. We have to let go of the value attachment. It’s going to be both. It’s the beginning of more of this and more and more of this. It’s about acceptance of that. Memory and imagination—the source of happiness and pain.
The image that came to me is birthing myself. In a chant, there’s a line I’m giving birth to myself. It went through my head during the meditation. Being sick last week and in physical pain, in that context, it felt like birthing pains. I remember going through the pain of birth—thinking of it as a good pain. It’s positive, something is transforming here. I wanted to share that. The image of a snake shedding its skin, it was in your reading, again and again. Giving birth to a new moment, a new day, a new year. Thank you.
Thank you for your reading. What resonated with me was I’m a survivor, I’m a learner. This has been a difficult year for me personally. With this meditation every morning, trying to get strength and learning how to cope and looking forward to the year 2021 to shed some of the sorrow. Thank you so much.
I’ve been in the house for most of 2020. When I was going through it, I was feeling sorry for myself because of physical conditions and not seeing my grandchildren. Now that it’s coming to a close and I look back over the year, I say to myself, yes, it had its terrible spots. But I choose to look at what I learned. I feel like I learned what’s really important in life. I learned how to play, I learned how to love, to be self-sufficient, to be faithful over fearful, to share, how to see and to express gratitude. Going into 2021, my choice is to leave behind toxic politicians and news broadcasts, and to bring forward the good parts of what I’ve learned—the love, the prayer, the trust. I feel fortunate to have connected to this group.
Thank you, that was beautiful. Thank you for your willingness to walk into the unknown and push through the learning process.
The shedding of the skin resonated with me. My pewter angel separated in some way yesterday. I’ve thought about it and the image that came to me was one of a spaceship. When a spaceship goes into the sky, the pieces that are used up start dropping away until the core of the spaceship continues on. I have to meditate on it more, but that’s what I decided it was. A letting go of the unnecessary physical dross.
What an image. And a lesson on how to take something painful and turn it into a blessing.
I love the way the universe expresses itself in physical ways. It crosses that veil somehow in tangible ways that make you look at it.
That was the exact thought I had when I wrote we see beyond what our brains know because there are other things there, and when we find them, it’s such a blessing.
Somedays I can’t squeeze in joining the meditation in the morning with all I am doing. And then I miss it so much. I get solace and comfort to start out the day. What you wrote was just beautiful. I hope over time I can feel some of what you are feeling and look at the future. I am always grateful, every single day. I think about the beauty and integrity of nature. I saw a little squirrel on my windowsill. All the beauty and honesty and peace of nature. I’m always grateful and in hope about that. I am also stuck in a mire and loss. I’ve lost so much of my energy. It’s hard to find a safe affordable place to live for my family. I hope to feel more hopeful about the future and push aside the negativity of the world and people not treating each other very well.
It’s one foot in front of the other and leaning into what works. This is one of the resources that works. There are other resources out there that we find.
There’s a New Year’s Eve service tonight and other events through the Zen center.
Being here is an opportunity to spend time with like, feeling beings who are holding this cusp into the new year with reverence. Thank you all. I hope you all enjoy this end of a year. We won’t let the door hit us on the way out. We are through it. We’ll see you all next year.
Comments