Every year at this time, I feel the anxiety and restlessness begin to rise within me, and the cold settles into my bones. Every year, I need to consciously ease my spirit into the season. This year, from the beginning of December until Epiphany, I will set it down here on the blog. May we journey into the darkness with intention and tenderness.
I’m getting ready for a new week, and already feeling far behind. And tired. Don’t get me wrong. I love my students and my colleagues, so school is a good place to be. I just. Don’t. Want. To. Go. I’m feeling such a powerful inner resistance to leaving the house, to leaving this nest of darkness and warmth. Today’s word, I think, must be steps. I’ll just have to move moment to moment, and step to step, through the fog of morning and into the week.
Gratitude List:
1. Scent of Pine
2. Tender Hearts
3. Walking through the shadows, one step at a time
4. Literature
5. Wise Friends
May we walk in Beauty!
“Most people are willing to take the Sermon on the Mount as a flag to sail under, but few will use it as a rudder by which to steer.” —Oliver Wendell Holmes
“You are not a drop in the ocean. You are the entire ocean in a drop.” —Rumi
“O, my love, there’s sun in the crook of your arm!” —Grace Schulman
Excerpt from Leymah Gbowee’s Nobel speech:
“This prize could not have come at a better time than this; a time when global and community conversations are about how local community members and unarmed civilians can help turn our upside-down World, right-side up. It has come at a time when unarmed citizens—men and women, boys and girls—are challenging dictatorships and ushering in democracy and the sovereignty of people.
To women of Liberia and sisterhood across West Africa who continue to band together to respond to crisis in our sub region; to women in Asia, the Middle East and the World: As we celebrate our achievement through this recognition let us remind ourselves that victory is still afar. We must continue to unite in sisterhood to turn our tears into triumph, our despair into determination and our fear into fortitude. There is no time to rest until our world achieves wholeness and balance, where all men and women are considered equal and free.”
Mockingbird Chronicles 