#177: Happy New Year!
Dear reader,
Happy New Year! I’m thrilled to be sending out my first 2022 newsletter to you all. I hope you’re all rested and fresh for the new year. Whether you’re making resolutions this year or not or trying to get into a new rhythm, be kind to yourself and others.
“Don’t be afraid of death; be afraid of an unlived life.”
-Natalie Babbitt
I can’t wait to navigate this year with better boundaries and more clarity on my needs.
Less talk, More doing, as a dear friend always says. :)
Also, if you know anyone who would enjoy this newsletter in their inbox every week, you could:
Poetry Corner
1. Habits by Carol Beachy Wenger
A habit is a sticky thing;
Much good or evil it can bring;
It binds a victim, holds him fast,
And keeps him in a vise-like grasp.
Bad habits grow with extra speed,
Much like a healthy, growing weed.
The roots grow deep, the stem grows stout;
How difficult to pull it out!
Good habits are a little slow;
They need a lot of care to grow;
If tended well, they grow more fair
Than any bloom a plant can bear.
Good habits help us all through life;
Bad habits bring us pain and strife;
Our habits, whether right or wrong,
Each day will grow more firm and strong.
2. Self-Love Is Important by Niina Pollari
(from Dead Horse)
In the night I sit
With a cup of old wine
Tearing me up
It’s terrible to admit
I haven’t left the house today or gotten dressed
I don’t know what yellow the moon is
Or the tail of clouds around it
Or what is a moon
Forgetting is easy: just never go out
Really soon the sun too will become an elaborate metaphor
Yes when we’re dead we come apart
A little at a time
Today my exposure
To wilderness is a zooming house fly
And the smell of my own sweat
Hey, creature
I am too poor to kill
The death of a body means nothing
Unless it’s your own
And basically the deal is until I get to the end of this poem, or any poem
And/or until I have no more body parts to give
We can both live
Self-love is looking
At yourself like a foreign bug and still loving
I hate my long-dead body, I think every morning and night
Shuddering wine or black coffee down my neck
Pull it down with gravity
With the grace of gravity
I feel less and fear
Paroxysm, bless
The nerves down
To the feet that fold from my body like serifs
I am going to love something to the ground for once
3. Blossom by Dorianne Laux
What is a wound but a flower
dying on its descent to the earth,
bag of scent filled with war, forest,
torches, some trouble that befell
now over and done. A wound is a fire
sinking into itself. The tinder
serves only so long, the log holds on
and still it gives up, collapses
into its bed of ashes and sand. I burned
my hand cooking over a low flame,
that flame now alive under my skin,
the smell not unpleasant, the wound
beautiful as a full-blown peony.
Say goodbye to disaster. Shake hands
with the unknown, what becomes
of us once we’ve been torn apart
and returned to our future, naked
and small, sewn back together
scar by scar.
4. To Be Famous by Boris Pasternak
Creation calls for self-surrender,
Not loud noise and cheap success.
Life must be lived without false face,
Lived so that in the final count
We draw unto ourselves love from space.
So plunge yourself into obscurity
And conceal there your tracks.
But be alive, alive your full share,
Alive until the end.
5. Risk by Anaïs Nin
And then the day came,
when the risk
to remain tight
in a bud
was more painful
than the risk
it took
to blossom.
6. After Some Lines of Goethe by William H. Gass
Calm covers the peaks.
Among the treetops
a breath hangs like a leaf.
In the deep woods
birdsong sleeps.
At the foot of hills
slopes find their peace.
Be patient. Wait.
Soon, you too, will cease.
Recommended Listening
Links of the Week:
Watch: Don’t Be Afraid
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A reminder for the new year:
"Give yourself what you need instead of what you crave"
-Yung Pueblo
Have a great start to your week, month and year! You got this.
Sending good energy,
Rohini