New Years Intentions

 I looked at my blog from Jan 1 last year and found that I had listed 4 intentions for the year:

1. to learn more

2. to deepen my spiritual life

3. to do more exercise than pickleball

4. to take risks

And - on reflection - I realized that I had actually done all four this year.  I read a lot of books, took an online class, invited three friends to walk with me when weather permits and did - in retrospect - quite a bit of risk taking.  Who knew? 

So, I look at this year and wonder what I am longing for now.  Where am I being led or guided? During this year I have made a decision to stay in my home for a while and have grown into a deeper awareness that I may have two more decades to live - so I want to be healthier.  I have a tag on my mirror that says "Do more of what makes you happy" and so I these are some new intentions:

1. More fruits and vegetables and less meat - and maybe less sugar

2. More poetry

3. More neighboring

4. More risks

That is probably enough.  I know that for some people - instead of resolutions or intentions - they like a word for the year.  This is the word that comes to me this morning: ALIVE. I think of the quote from Iraneus  "The Glory of God is a person fully alive."

And when I say alive - that means to fully engage in all of the emotions of life, to be present in the present, to choose life giving and not life numbing activities, to live in wonder and gratitude and awe.

So, here's to LIFE!  Here's to 2022!  Here's to being fully alive.

Here's a perfect poem for this day that I found online

Fully Alive (by Dawna Markova)

I will not die an unlived life.
I will not live in fear
of falling or catching fire.
I choose to inhabit my days,
to allow my living to open me,
to make me less afraid,
more accessible,
to loosen my heart
until it becomes a wing,
a torch, a promise.
I choose to risk my significance;
to live so that which came to me as seed
goes to the next as blossom
and that which came to me as blossom,
goes on as fruit.