Posted on by judibwriting

August

sunrise before the smoke alert from Canadian fires by author

The 8th of this month is my wedding anniversary. Richard died six months before the date that will have marked our fifty years together. A day of contemplation and nostalgia is being subsumed by the death of one of my two brothers.

This is not as upsetting to me as you might think. Our dysfunctional family relationships continued long after we all parted ways in our teenage years- me to boarding school, my middle brother to the army, and my oldest brother was already at college. I have not seen Steve, the brother who died, in 30 years. He had undiagnosed mental health issues before he joined the army as a teenager, and after being a medic in Viet Nam, where so many of his buddies in ‘Charlie company’ died in his care, he emerged with PTSD as another label to add to his inherited DNA issues and tendency to addiction.

Although there was a shameful L.A. hospital response to his initial drug overdose last week, he was released so that he accomplished a successful overdose as soon as they dumped him back at his trailer. His painful life was a tragedy for such a unhappy, bright, sensitive man. His death was also a relief and release for him. He leaves a family behind who also must also have mixed feelings about his death. Though I am not that close to his divorced wife or his children or grandchildren, I will wait to see how they will handle a memorial, or death notices, and I would guess the army pays for a burial? I do not know, and I live too far away to be actively involved in any event.

My brother and I met for the last time in a genuine effort to let go of the relationship forged in our childhood. I no longer wished to be a victim of his abuse, and he dearly wished to be absolved from his guilt as a victimizer. Essentially, we acknowledged the roles we played out in our troubled family. For me, I was truly able to deepen the forgiveness I had already worked on for many years before our reconciliation. I felt freed from the painful past though I do not know if he ever felt the same. I had no idea that we’d never see one another again when I said goodbye to him that last day, but I can still see his face standing in the doorway before he shut the door.

We all have different beliefs about what happens after our bodies die. Pragmatic finality or spiritual and religious faiths all give us different ways to envision the inevitable end.

For me, I feel sure Steve’s inner flame, so hidden in this life, is now welcomed in some way and that he is at peace and free to shine anew. I don’t believe that love is ever wasted. I always turn to writing as a means of integrating my heart and thoughts, so here is the final poem I wrote as general tribute to Steve and to life and mortality.

Waves (After the Death of my Brother)

I stop on the covered bridge.

A breeze whispers through the woods, pauses, then sets the leaves to dancing in a sigh.

The clatter of cicadas washes over me from one side, echoing back from the other.

My breath rises and falls, rises and falls.

Shivering the trees’ reflections, a fish jumps in the pond.

Blood songs sing through me with every pulse of my heart.

Thoughts of you arise to solidify, returning you to the earth.

My own wave recedes, curls up, lingers at the apex.

I am suspended in the swells of living and dying.

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INTERDEPENDENCE

Our dining room, by author

Sadly, I wrote this 3 years ago and it is still true today.

Independence and Freedom July 4th, 2023

It was another day to consider independence and freedom especially for America. Most of us remember that France was our ally. In fact, more Frenchmen than American revolutionaries died at the Battle of Lexington. But Spain was aiding France against Britain and Britain was already stressed in in its trade relations with India. In other words, the battle for freedom from British rule directly or indirectly involved other countries as well. We were interdependent in order to achieve our independence and our newly founded nation thereafter required maintaining healthy relations with the world as it was then, just as it does now.

Freedom from Britain was just the beginning of illuminating just what our fledgling nation meant by freedom. Our constitution gives broad definitions concerning the freedom to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” We are well aware of the consequences of the vagueness involved in stating that, “all men are created equal.” Originally excluding other genders and races, this novel document was written by wealthy privileged white men, themselves owners of slaves.

We are witnessing the wish to control the rapid and inevitable changes of our world, by turning back the clock to the formerly well-defined social values of the past. These values happen to favor white culture, especially white men. This endeavor to go backwards for security against change is bound to fail. From breaking the mold of gender identity, the dissolution of old cultural dominance, to the rapid advance of social media, and the much-vaunted progress in the use and potential uses of AI, it is impossible to halt the need for inclusivity to reweave a healthy national fabric. The false picture of demographically white America denies the resources of the new faces, cultures, religions, and skills so essential for our future.

2026

Here we are today and even more deeply entrenched in the unraveling of what we thought we had already gained. I am not hopeless, though I am unable to foresee how we will hit bottom and eventually find that the only way is up from there. And then there will be a day, a year, years of reckoning to build a new republic. We will build new safeguards. Perhaps we can then keep this revitalized republic alive and thriving.

Interdependence and interconnectivity is evident with every breath you take. Since the first microorganisms began emitting oxygen sending evolution in a new direction, with other organisms developing to exhale carbon dioxide, this constant exchange has never stopped. No new oxygen molecules have been formed since the beginning. We are continuously recycling the same molecules with all flora and fauna. Every breath.

Every bit of life on this planet is interconnected with all beings, with all life. May we inhale and exhale with gratitude that this is so. May we learn to protect, sustain and celebrate our interdependence.

Courtyard garden, by author

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Sweet Memories

Ice cream choices at Kendal today, by author

June 24, 2026

Today our family eats ice cream in your honor. When we became a couple, you were just nineteen, and me, not quite seventeen. I discovered right away that ice cream was your favorite sweet- except for the one summer when you worked in a Baskin Robbins ice cream store. After all you could eat for free, your young body finally rebelled. It took a short while before the “frozen dairy delight”, as we called it forever after we met, to reassert itself as your favorite food.

As the years went by, no matter who had ever shared a meal with you would have known that ice cream was on your menu. From the early days of eating an entire pint of Hagen Dås together (how exotic that tasted after years of boxed quarts of Lady Borden’s), to sniffing out Boston’s finest Brigham’s ice cream, to making our own hand cranked versions with cream separated straight from the Jersey cow’s milk in Vermont, to your discovery of gelato in Italy, to all the brands that had proliferated as we aged, ice cream was a constant love.

One night, home on Hospice care in the last few days of your life, you were barely conscious. After months of chemo and stem cell infusions, you had a “death rehearsal”, spiking a fever and gasping for breath. The night nurse and I thought this was it. But after sitting you up, pounding on your back to dislodge phlegm, and bringing down the fever with cold wash cloths on your forehead and under your armpits, you relaxed and fell back into a quieter sleep.

In the morning, the nurse spoke with me, and we agreed that you were out of the danger zone. You opened your eyes and said very clearly, “Is there an ice cream zone?” We laughed and you smiled, knowing it was a joke. We gave you all the ice cream you eat for breakfast.

When my grandson was four years old, eating ice cream on your birthday with his family at the picnic table outside, he got up and put a spoonful of his ice cream on the grass for you, the Grandpa Richard that he had never met. Your ashes have long since washed down the country stream to the Atlantic, but this spontaneous gesture sweetened the day for us all.

At your memorial, all three hundred folks agreed that it was the perfect choice to serve them four kinds of ice cream. What else would you have wanted to share with those who loved you?

We celebrate your birthday as sweet memories of you melt in our mouths.

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JUNE

Farmer’s Pond by author

I’ve been binge watching this series called Springtime at Kendal. I am hooked. A friend told me yesterday of an earlier episode in May that I missed at Button Bush Pond. Spoiler Alert: it was about reproduction as is most of the first half of the season. The one I missed was about two turtles slowly rolling about in the water, like choreographed wrestlers. Yes, they were mating, not wrestling.

Painted turtle, by author

In the first June episode I was coming back from Farmer’s Pond and heard two geese making a ruckus at BB Pond where they don’t usually hang out. I ramped up my mobility scooter and zipped down the road and over the wooden bridge, thunkity, thunkity as my wheels rolled along. I stopped on the observation deck of this swampy vernal pond and saw a drama up close.

The gander was in the water at the edge of the pond where it meets the woods. The Mother Goose was in the woods next to the water standing with one gosling at her feet. Both adults were loudly squonking and vigorously flapping their wings. I spied another gosling in the shallow water who was apparently stuck on a fallen branch that barely rose above the pond’s surface. It was like watching two people trying to move a vehicle stuck in the mud. The adults were encouraging the poor gosling from front and behind, back and forth, back and forth as best they could.

For a brief moment I jumped out of my scooter, hopped over the railing, splashed through the water and convinced the gander I was only saving his baby- no, of course, I didn’t. To everyone’s great relief the gosling was suddenly free and limped up on the shore to join his mom and sibling. The gander lined them up and marched them out of the woods and down the road. Though the one gosling was going slowly at first, the family waddled out of sight and was on their way to safer waters.

More episodes so far this month have been watching fledgling birds being refused by their mothers to feed them, and fawns walking out of the woods.

fawn safely crossing road by author

Every day, more beauty and more beauty blossoms as flowers, trees, our cactus garden, and bushes perfume our eyes and noses.

cactus garden by author

The program that is always on, is the one starring me, just as you are always engaged with the one featuring you. Stepping back to observe ourselves is a wonderful gift we human beings have. We may not always use it to the best advantage, but sometimes taking a moment can help us to breathe through a knee jerk reaction giving ourselves a chance to make a more thoughtful choice. When we lie down at night, we might use the time to review ourselves in the worst possible light. We chew on the, “should haves, could haves, and would haves,” as if by replaying moments gone by, we can fix the sense that we messed up somehow.

Knowing how much I delight in catching each springtime episode in the outdoors, I would rather bring the same open curiosity to myself. Each tiny moment of spring adds up to the entire season unfolding before my eyes. Spring will morph into summer at the end of the month while each tiny moment in my in my own life adds up to this day I am living through.

June features my husband’s birthday towards the end of the month. It is eight years since his death, and I do not plan on experiencing nostalgia or sorrow. Grief has its own pace and its bittersweet place when it shows up. I wouldn’t say that time heals all wounds, but time allows for reframing painful events within the larger picture of our lives.  I have also witnessed fallen nests, broken eggs, and well-fed snapping turtles as spring moves on. It is not all about amusing or cheerful successful baby beings. Taking time for each moment to be alive and touch our hearts is where I ask June to take me. All of it.

woodland garden whites by author

Posted on by judibwriting

MAY

Irises by author

This month was likely named after the Roman goddess Maia, goddess of spring and fertility. I just learned today that this month is also dedicated to Mary in the Christian tradition. Likely many songs and rituals were grafted onto earlier Pagan traditions which was a common practice as Christianity replaced the Old Ways. Songs in praise of Mary began to be written early on and are soaringly beautiful, including one I heard on the radio this morning, Ave Maris Stella, Hail Mary Queen of the Sea. Even patriarchal systems must recognize the feminine principle in this spring season of giving birth.

I was thinking of the game I played as a child called ‘Mother May I’. The Mother stood on one side of the designated area while a line of children (I suspect this was probably more of girl’s game, like skipping rope, or hopscotch, or jacks) stood opposite her. You asked permission to come closer and closer to her until you tagged her and became the new Mother. You could take Baby Steps, a Giant Step, an Umbrella Twirl Step or a Banana Slide. “Mother, may I take a (name a number of one of the four kinds of steps)?” She’d answer “yes, you may” or “no, you may not,” and eventually, someone would reach her. The aim was to cheat and make the steps as big as possible and also to wiggle forward bit by bit without Mother noticing or she could send you back to the beginning. Mother had such power in that game! The tension of it all was the fun part.

I also learned this month that Mother’s Day was originally started as Mothers’ Day. (Thank you to my friend Bonnie Gintis.) A civil war mother, having lost her son, started it in recognition of standing for peace, not war. America is awfully good at reducing serious holidays to candy, flowers and cards. As a mother, I have nothing against receiving any of those items. But also consider it inappropriate to say, “Happy Mother’s Day” to all women for obvious reasons. It’s like saying, “Thank you for your service,” to all former servicemen and women who may not want to be thanked for losing limbs, minds, and friends in whatever war they fought. They get no candy, flowers or cards except for remembrance from relatives and friends on the graves of those who died.

Mother's Day art by 6 year-old- grandson Max, gifted to Grandma Judi photo by author.

Still, it is spring. Chilly as it has remained here in Northeast Ohio, greenery and flowers keep opening to the sun as we bend closer in our hemisphere. We have had only a few days of ‘no jacket weather’ to remind us of what is sure to come. One day soon I suspect we’ll all be complaining about how hot and dry it is as we are still alternating between some frosty nights and gray, wet days. May we all take time to appreciate the feminine principles of giving birth to, and nurturing, all life no matter your gender.

sign photo by author

Posted on by judibwriting

April

Magnolia tree by author

April

April showers commenced torrentially overnight. The small lawn outside my window borders a paved road for a firetruck to access this wing of our facility. Beside it is a ditch leading to a stone filled catchment area with a diverting culvert pipe. But it rained steadily all the next day, and the ditch was overflowing my lawn and the road until the water ran inches deep. The water table is high everywhere at Kendal as our one-hundred-and-fifty-acre campus was created from digging out wetlands to create seven ponds. Long time staff would say they had been here ‘since mud” because it was a long time before drainage occurred, the grass was planted, and the foundations were secured.

On the next day, there remained only manageable puddles. The passing egrets, hooded merganser, ring neck ducks and the local geese and mallards are happy. Today it is sunny and in the seventies, so now people are happy, too. I keep writing the paradox of darkness, war, madness, and the unflinching procession of spring. I write to integrate my deep sorrow, to ground myself in thoughts and words to create spacious healthy boundaries, to refuse despair with news being in my face the minute I dip in enough to keep myself informed. My friends all have their own ways to play, to share the best of friendships, families, and brave, uplifting human stories we hear of to celebrate.

Humans do not like paradox. We would rather our path forward was always clear, safe and unchanging. That is never the whole picture of life considering that death is also our partner from the moment we are born. The older we get the more mortality is evident in the losses of an eldering body. Losses may be gradual until one day sudden and perhaps cascading health situations arise forever changing the trajectory of day to day living. Resilience and willingness to adapt will serve us better than railing against this reality.

Adapting to external crisis is harder to bear as we know we have less agency to make the changes we desire. Finding resilience to hold both life and death, sorrow and joy, patience and frustration, is always part of being human. Much is asked of us today, just as ancient civilizations have also had to witness to violent upheavals as a means of change in their own time.

Spring rituals and traditions of all religions and cultures provide a way to acknowledge that we share one precious planet. May we each find our own way to celebrate that Oneness.

This first poem counters the fear that is in in the air these days.

Early Spring Music

Thunder growls as spring jerks

back and forth from sun, warm rain,

to snow in the morning.

She dances to every kind of music.

Tangos, waltzes, minuets, sultry jazz riffs,

hard tock and brass fanfares

from one day to the next as the light increases.

Green creeps in its petty pace from day to day.

Daffodils, pansies, crocuses, forsythias

bide no excuses to halt unfolding,

so why should I?

This next stream of consciousness poem repeats the refrain of spring weather on the first night of Passover, ironically celebrating the freedom of the Jews’ escape from the oppression of the Egyptian pharaoh. Whose freedom today?

April 1st    2026

Last night boom black

shards of lightning

rain rattled my window

like gusts of gravel hitting the glass

today quietly soaking the lawn into a lake






Sunshine-yellow overtakes olive





molting finches dart about





feeding ignoring the steady rain





our raincoats shedding umbrellas shaken





boots off come on in have a seat.










No kidding April 1st





it is Spring unwinding





a vengeance of green





everywhere no stopping





this delicious insistence of life










Despite rites of freedom and renewal





refused decimated by winters





of Their discontent who pays





who wins who loses we hurt





yet she sings the busy birds,





“Listen, we rise again.










neighbor’s patio, by author

	



	



			
				



	
		

			

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March
					


	

	

	

		






Christmas cactus by author





The month of March (also the Red Planet) is named after the Roman god of war, Martius or Mars. Our country has honored his name this month in a very visible way. Although there is likely a war always going on somewhere on the planet, this particular ‘war-not a war-a war’- is very visible with the potential for many dire unforeseen consequences. I don’t believe our leader is currently able to process logical systematic ideas. I think unelected advisors are filling his disorganized brain with what to do couched in terms he wants to hear and so he spouts what he is told in his own discombobulated manner. For the moment, this has proven acceptable for the machinery behind the throne. Who knows for how long this arrangement (derangement) will go on? Rashes and bruises aside, there may come a time when it no longer serves their purpose, and they will find a way to move forward with a new face promoting their agenda.





In concert with other powerful violent men, they continue to wreak further havoc on the world. We watch, we protest, we suffer in sympathy and keep working to find our own heartful sanity every day. It is difficult to endure but I am not the one dying from the devastation of daily bombs.





Enough said.





What else is happening in March? My Christmas cactus pictured above decided that the latest thaw that began last month, was the signal to send forth exuberant blossoms. I sat by one pond today and listened to the tree frogs peeping and chirring, so it must be spring, even though they do not read calendars. Down the road I can hear geese squownking loudly in the latest kerfuffle involving impressive water fights with powerful wings. Some paired geese have returned to their own nesting sites from past years and look away from such youthful bravado.





Aconite popped up last month in the first thaw we had, and today the daffodils are swelling with buds even though we know it could possibly snow once again. I am thinking that the old, ‘In like a lion and out like a lamb.‘ is no longer a reliable expectation. The weather is on its own trajectory. I saw mourning doves and heard new songbirds calling last week and I see iris, tulip and other leaves spearing up through the mulch in many beds around the campus. They are hardy as are we. We welcome each warmer day as it comes. I read somewhere online- sorry I can’t attribute it properly- that this is ,‘Wrong coat weather. No matter which coat you choose it will be the wrong one.” She is correct.





The week before last I created a silent retreat for myself. No computer or phone at all. It was nourishing and as I quipped, “It was just like real life only much quieter. All distractions were of my own making.” The following is a poem I wrote about the second to last day. My dear neighbor and friend across the street is Carol, to whom I dedicated the poem.





After the February Thaw





For Carol





Yesterday, whole trees wildly welcomed





an incoming gusty cold front.





Weather gods withdrew





their warm moist breath that melted





compacted snowplow mountains.










Across the road, the white canvas cover





of an outside patio chair





billowed up, puckered in, billowed up, puckered in.





I saw a bird, whose claws were caught in the seat





extending two brown wings flapping and flapping,





trying hard to escape the chair.





I keenly felt its struggle for freedom.










Today, the cold settled down to bite back





your every inhale, condensing around your exhales.





The potent breath of life that gave rise to a bird





made of worn-out cushion stuffing





is gone.










Life is like this sometimes-





we are sure we see things clearly before us-





that then turn out to be





products of our own illusion.










aconite through window by author

	



	



			
				



	
		

			

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Valentine’s Day
					


	

	

	

		






Richard,1990’s, in the woods in Bearsville, NY





It is hard to believe that my husband Richard died on 2/14/2018. Eight years ago. A very short and very long time ago after almost fifty years together. Living at Kendal at Oberlin in Ohio has been such a gift to me and I would not be here if not for the work Richard and I did together, making it possible. I wrote something for our Valentine’s Day program to share with the community. I include it now, and those of you who knew him best, please remember to eat some ice cream in his memory, chocolate chip mint if you can fid it.





Valentine’s Day 2026             Love is all Around                                         





Love- I have been thinking about the title of our program, “Love is All Around.”  I believe this is true. Of course, I don’t walk around feeling love inside of me all the time. I certainly don’t feel lovable all the time. But I still believe that love is all around, all the time. For me, love just is. The invisible power of love seems to have been compressed into the singularity that exploded into the universe. It sustained the eons of time it took to bring our planet into orbit with its star, its Sol mate. It manifested in the evolution of millions of species: including you and me.





Lovers, poets, spiritual teachers, philosophers, and even neuroscientists, have tried to define love, to discover its origins. If I had a definition of human love, it would be something like, “a felt experience of Oneness with all things.” All things. I love my husband of almost 50 years who died on this date in 2018. I love my family and friends. I love my morning tea, my computer, and my favorite pillow, and science, music, art, animals and plants, dragonflies and sunsets, seasons in Ohio, and I love our Kendal community. I feel a loving oneness with all that inhabits my world. I don’t love my computer in the same way that I love my family. But I love how it allows me to easily write down my thoughts and to find new information. I can reach out to people living far from me, strangers and beloveds alike.





I am also of the belief that human fear is the opposite of love. Fear of loss grows into ideas and actions of hatred to protect against the pain of loss. Losing control, losing power, fame and wealth, losing your home and country, your health and your life- these losses elicit strong responses from all of us- and yes, from me, when me and mine are endangered. How dare this current wave of horrors change the way I live my life? or threaten the life of my special needs daughter or the future of my grandchildren? I hate what is happening….





Do I love the actions of those people who are purposely destroying life as I know it? No. But still I believe it is the living force of interconnected love that holds our world together. This is so even when I or anyone else behaves in a way that is not life-affirming. I thought I was very bold as a teenager. I hung up a poster my aunt brought me back from Italy that said: Face L’amore Non la Guerra- make love not war. Human love isn’t all passive hearts and rainbows. Love can be channeled into fiercely creative resistance and purposeful action. Many leaders and teachers throughout history have lost their lives while standing up for non-violence, or for compassion, not retribution- all for the love of truth and justice.





I just reread a book that I hadn’t read in years. It migrated with me from NY state to Ohio and was languishing on my shelf. The Forty Rules of Love, was written by the famous Turkish female author Elaf Shafak. It is a novel about the thirteenth century Sufi poet, Rumi. She tells his story as it intertwines unexpectedly with the experience of a modern-day Massachusetts housewife. It won’t give anything away to read you the last lines in the book. I will end with Shafak’s words that say all I really want to say about love.





“It’s Rule Number Forty”, she said slowly. “A life without love is of no account. Don’t ask yourself what kind of love you should seek, spiritual or material, divine or mundane, Eastern or Western…Divisions only lead to more divisions. Love has no labels or definitions. It is what it is, pure and simple.





“Love is the water of life. And a lover is a soul of fire!





The universe turns differently when fire loves water.”





I hope everyone reading this will celebrate love, large and small, in any way that you can.











	



	



			
				



	
		

			

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February
					


	

	

	

		






Me, sitting in wheelchair on left, many more people filing in to sit on the sides and back of the auditorium.





February





On Sunday afternoons at Kendal, we usually have a concert in the auditorium. This one was supposed be performed by two Oberlin Conservatory students playing a program of Shostakovich and Prokofiev. It was canceled as that was the day we had our share of the Big Snowstorm. We had a foot of snow that was just tapering off by 4:00, the usual time we  begin listening to sublime musical offerings.





Instead, given the prediction, Ellie and her husband, new-last-year-residents, decided the night before to call a pop-up peace and justice vigil to be held in the predictably empty auditorium at that time. Amazingly, as some folks would choose to remain comfortably in their homes to watch it on our campus wide TV, we gathered about 75 people around our Peace Pole, newly purchased due to the efforts of a committee spearheaded by Ellie and her husband Carlton. (Ordered from a company that makes them, ours has “May peace prevail on earth” in 8 different languages including Mohawk and in braille.) This spontaneous gathering was truly representative of our diverse community, as we shared voices of our fears, anger, hopelessness, and the many opportunities for active engagement locally, and, above all, hope. We spoke, listened, and sang together for peace and justice.





I was inspired to write a poem for the occasion and was moved to write another one the day after and a final one the day after that.





ICE TRYPTIC :  (three poems for Peace, by Judi Bachrach)





I:





Sitting for Peace in the Snowstorm            1/25/2026





Today, we have snow, you have ice.





We have desert heat, you have monsoons.





We share the same tapestry of sky





shaping the invisible atmosphere





rising miles above our heads





into dark universal space.










We have tragedy, you have joy.





We have violence, you sit for peace.





We have lost a parent; you birthed a child.





Emotions swim in the same ocean,





one drop indistinguishable from the other.





At our most basic,





we are always both a particle and a wave.










What is empty, what is full?





What is real, what is true?





What exists beyond my senses?





Embodying peace subsumes thought.





Embodying peace subsumes thought.





In the atmospheric ocean of peace,





Oneness is universal. I would dwell there.





II:





Embodied Peace   1/26/26





Embodied peace will tell you where to go and what to sign,





who to call, what to say, and when to remain silent.





Peace will tell you when to put your body on the line





and when to retreat because you still have more to do here.





Peace is loud or silent,





isolating and a magnet for gathering





like-minded souls to move the power of ignorance.





Peace erupts like a volcano,





lava streams covering everything





on the way to creating new ground.





Peace radiates the glow of love and justice





weighing exactly as much as that which is needed





to rebalance the scale.





Embodying peace is the work we do





to listen and to take right action.





III:





For the Love of Finches     1/27/26





Today it’s not the inbreath





of horror and anger





responding to wanton destruction





of life and sanity.





It’s the slow outbreath





of resolve to live in love.





The first awakening from sleep





into the world of an eldering body





carries miraculous awareness





of living another day,





another opportunity for joy.





Not in spite of sorrow,





but because I cannot en-joy one





without the other.





Gratitude for seeming opposites





finds a nesting home in my heart





where shivering finches





fluff their feathers sharing our bitter cold.





We feed them and their lives nourish ours in return.





That is how love works.





In gratitude and joy, I offer my life





to the Oneness of love,





one small seed at a time.

	



	



			
				



	
		

			

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January: And a New Year
					


	

	

	

		






photo of Buttonbush Pond in Winter by author





We all could make a list of what we would like to have happen in the new year. In our personal lives, we will wish for the health and well-being of ourselves, our families, and our friends. That may mean that we’d like our current life challenges to be resolved in a benign manner, that we will have the strength and wisdom to handle further unforeseen disruptions, and that we may continue to grow and mature in meaningful ways.





The list of what we would like for our country and the world might be roughly the same with some very pointed specifics. There are major changes that we want to see so that we can live our personal lives in safety, free from the harm of an unstable external world.





Considering a new year for both the personal and the external, we are faced with the reality that the two are intimately intertwined. What happens out there, reverberates in here. And, how we hold our inner perceptions, greatly affects our perceptions of what occurs in the world around us. We must acknowledge that so much of our lives is out of our control. This has always been so, but perhaps it is now an inescapable reality to see how fast our assumptions and expectations were upended in the space of this one year, 2025.





To me, the only path to well-being in the face of crises, is to make space inside of yourself to align with what reinforces your capacity to experience that sense of rightness. Elizabeth Lesser used the phrase, “everyday saint” in her book, Broken Open. We do not have to become the Dalai Lama, or spiritual masters- we just need to affirm our best selves in the lives that we live every day.





That moment of reflection before we react in anger, the pause to listen carefully to the person right in front of us even if you’ve heard the same litany of complaints many times before, offering to do an errand for someone else even when you’re tired- these are simple, extremely difficult acts to accomplish. Songya Rinpoche wrote (I am paraphrasing), “Miraculous powers (siddhis) like walking on water are all very well- but not reacting in anger? – now that is a miracle.”





The year that lies ahead looks to be dangerous sailing for so many of us humans. Realistically, it will take a long time for our world turn to back towards compassion and sanity. I feel anger, despair, and sorrow whenever I listen to the news. But I do not linger in those normal responses. I cannot afford to contribute to darkness but will work to bring myself into gratitude for the light that still exists. There are millions of others everywhere who also hold the light, but who are not in the headlines. They are hardworking everyday saints just like you and me.





I wish everyone a Happy New Year.