A new year is coming am I ready? Are any of us really ready? There always seems to be something that feels off guard. Getting back into the swing off things feel foreign somehow. Not new and fresh just a skip in the record of life. The limbo land between Christmas and New Years feels the worst unless you fill it up with constant shopping and other activities. Somehow I'm not embracing something. I missing the idea maybe. There's a chip in my record and it needs to be replaced in order for me to understand what it is I am missing. It has to do with newness..... change....a chance. I need a new outlook on this time of year. A ritual that meets a need that aches inside.
*******************************************
"I said to the wanting-creature inside me:
What is this river you want to cross?
There are no travelers on the river-road, and no road.
Do you see anyone moving about on that bank, or
nesting?
There is no river at all, and no boat, and no boatman.
There is no tow rope either, and no one to pull it.
There is no ground, no sky, no time, no bank, no
ford!
And there is no body, and no mind!
Do you believe there is some place that will make the
soul less thirsty?
In that great absence you will find nothing.
Be strong then, and enter into your own body;
there you have a sold place for your feet.
Think about it carefully!
Don't go off somewhere else!
Kabir says this: just throw away all thoughts of
imaginary things,
and stand firm in that which you are."
*******************************************
"I said to the wanting-creature inside me:
What is this river you want to cross?
There are no travelers on the river-road, and no road.
Do you see anyone moving about on that bank, or
nesting?
There is no river at all, and no boat, and no boatman.
There is no tow rope either, and no one to pull it.
There is no ground, no sky, no time, no bank, no
ford!
And there is no body, and no mind!
Do you believe there is some place that will make the
soul less thirsty?
In that great absence you will find nothing.
Be strong then, and enter into your own body;
there you have a sold place for your feet.
Think about it carefully!
Don't go off somewhere else!
Kabir says this: just throw away all thoughts of
imaginary things,
and stand firm in that which you are."
posted by Lynne at 12/30/2004 11:15:00 AM
2 Comments:
I look around this morning and, no, I'm not ready. Here's what I've done so far: took K. to get a McD's cheeseburger last night as a final farewell to meat before we start a vegetarian year. Woo-hoo. It's a mistake to miss the New Year's Eve gathering in SB and I regret it. Today I want to clean and take the tree down to start the year with some kind of order.
As for the ritual, maybe what we need to do is get some women together, not on new year's eve but sometime around it and burn the things we want to leave behind (on paper of course!), and plant some seeds for all the things we want to grow in the new year. These are things I used to do, ten years ago, to greet the new year.
The sun will not show it's face today. We'll go into the new year in dark times, where people are suffering, where we have to search for hope. Pema Chodron says what I believe. We have everything we need.
I love the farewell to meat! Was it a quater pounder? I'm sorry you regret your decision about not coming. There were many years whe Tom and I would go to strangers houses we've only met once for New Years to break up the ritual. The first hour was hell, but thing got gradually better and the next thing we were having a great time. We only did that twice. Give it a chance. It might pan out to be what you were hoping for. Besides, there is always next year. The darkness of today seems appropriate considering what is happening in Indonesia and Sirlanka. I think I am liking this Pema Chodron
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