"The plot and the purpose..."

It is late afternoon on New Year's Eve, and I meant to get this out sooner. It is mostly my journal entry from this morning. I had a wonderful day seeing A Complete Unknown and having lunch with a friend. Then I visited with my neighbor. Life is busy.

I have not shed many tears since Thanksgiving, although I did this morning when I realized I won't have Jim here at midnight to wish Happy New Year and a kiss. But, that's okay. I had a little cry and now I'm fine.

For many months of 2024 I prayed for this year to end more times than I can count. And now we are here, the waning hours. Finally.

What a year it has been.

Yesterday, I listened to my 2024 playlist, the one I started and continued to add on to throughout the year. I started with three songs, and continued to add (and sometimes subtract) as the year went on. The songs tell the story of my year; every up and down is represented.

It helped me know I definitely need a new playlist for 2025. I already know it will start with "Here Comes the Sun." I need a new collection to motivate, inspire, and calm me.

This year my word was EMERGE. For a long time I did not know how it was manifesting. But now I can see I had to emerge out of a life that was unsustainable. I couldn't teach forever. Jim couldn't keep getting ill without it catching up to him.

It was not the way I had imagined the word "emerge" when I chose it. I thought I'd have more agency, more choice. Instead, it felt thrust upon me. Emerge, dammit!

I can't argue with the God that chose this for me. I am grateful for everything good that has come my way because of the repeated challenges. 

A shift is happening now with the new year. My wound is close to healed. The holiday respite is over, and January will demand attention on things I've easily let slide. I have been wondering if I am ready.

The answer is yes.

I just pray 2025 lands gently. I have mighty helpers on my side, no matter what. That will never change.

*

The third song on my playlist was Jimmy Buffett's "Bubbles Up." I wrote about it earlier this year, but it deserves more attention. Apple Music says it is the song I listened to the most this year, and I know it is true. It was my constant go-to because of the message and Jimmy's voice. Neither can be beat.

Bubbles up

They will point you toward home

No matter how deep or how far you roam

They will show you the surface

The plot and the purpose

So when the journey gets long

Just know that you are loved

There is light up above

And the joy is always enough

Bubbles up

Stopped in My Tracks: Poem

I continue to enjoy going to my Lectio Divine group every Monday afternoon, and am now starting to assist in finding passages for our four part study and sharing. I offered to do December 30, with the idea of finding something for the new year.

I never expected to find what I did. When I read this poem, I had this overwhelming feeling of awe that something could address so many aspects of my life, including the word EMERGE, which was my word for this year.

Sandy, our leader, feels this is a perfect poem for us to do on the 30th, and I will sink into it deeper then. Right now I am just reading and letting the words wash over me, knowing I will continue to find this a map of sorts for the life I am now living.

FOR A NEW BEGINNING 

by John O'Donohue

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 home in a new rhythm,

For your soul senses the world that awaits you.

Monday Morning

My word for the year is EMERGE, and I keep thinking I should write about it. Somehow, the process of emerging is hard to see and report on.

A couple of connected inspirations came my way today, quotes to contemplate. The first is from Anne Lamotta’s essay “Minus Tide:”

…the question is how do you notice your own life force now?

I don’t have an answer except to say that the last two nights I slept exceptionally well, and I feel stronger because of it.

The other is from Rumi’s poem “Silkworms:”

Without legs, we fly.

I don’t have a comment ready for that one yet. Going to take it into my day and see.

I somehow think both of these are related to emerging, and I need more time to observe how they connect to my daily life.

Meanwhile, I’m grateful for the wisdom of these sages. It reminds me we all have important work to do, and the capacity to do it.

On Saying Yes, Part 3 (Finding Refuge)

On Monday I read Mary Oliver's essay called "Some Thoughts on Whitman." This is the one that brought everything together for me.

Mary focuses heavily on Leaves of Grass, spotlighting "Song of Myself," which is his most notable poem. Most people recognize these words:

I celebrate myself

And what I assume you shall assume

For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

 

For years, I've looked at this poem as a celebration of the individual. And isn't that the way it is always promoted?

 

But I saw it reflective of Thich Nhat Hanh:

 

I take refuge in the Buddha.

The Buddha takes refuge in me.

 

These words Mary offered on Whitman's writing resonated for me:

 

Out-circling, interest, sympathy, empathy, transference of focus from self to all else; the merging of the lonely single self with the wondrous, never-lonely entirety.

 

Noting all these things in my journal, I came to a much needed revelation:

The practice of staying connected to everything has been calming.

I do not feel alone. That is huge.

Just a few days earlier I expressed how alone I felt. But I'm not feeling that now.

*

Yesterday I spent a few hours with Jim at the cancer center while he got his chemo. Last time I was there, I felt stressed and alien. I looked at other people there, listened to them, and felt I was in a strange lonely world. 

But yesterday was totally different. I felt the healing environment. I felt connected to the people there, not separated. The people we communicated with were positive and alive and present. 

 

And it didn't feel lonely.

I've let this experience in, which is what I needed to do.

*

Mary concludes her comments about Whitman with this:

Brawn and spirit, we are built of light and God is within us.

If I have to say anything about the moment I am living in, it is that. 

 

Unifying the light and dark is the best way I can describe it. 

 

Scared and lonely has no place in the refuge of God.

Without judgment or avoidance, I say a clear and resounding YES to this calling, this emergence, this never-lonely entirety.

Fierce

Two influences today for this essay: Rumi's poem "Fierce Courtesy" and Day 340 in Marianne Williamson's book A Year of Miracles: "For Reflection: On Finding Your Calling."

FIERCE! A word I need now.

To EMERGE (my word this year) takes a certain amount of FIERCENESS. Yes, I've been working on gentleness and finding joy and remembering to love. But some fierceness is required as well.

The balance is tough -- it's a constant guessing game, like a roulette wheel of chance ever changing around me. Will my approach be the right one? Will I make the right choice? Will I feel like I won or lost?

I've learned I cannot rely on anything except my own focus and fierceness to get any job done.

This past week was tough. The kids were loud and crazy and we were all struggling with them. Too much time away from school, I suppose. This week at least we can get back into a more regular routine, which we all need.

Because truthfully, I was a bit off my game as well. I put off planning things that needed to be done, causing me unnecessary stress.

AND I KNOW BETTER.

So today, despite being Sunday, I'm putting some plans in place, and I will not be sorry.

I know what I need to do will present itself, and I know that will be a win for us all. As Marianne Williamson wrote:

Your highest function is simply to be the person you are capable of being, and from that effort -- the development of your kindness and positivity, your vulnerability and availability to life, your calling will emerge.

It is not a gamble, now that I think about it. It is purposeful choice. It is fiercely living what I am called to do. And as I so often say to myself: Just remember to do the next right thing!