It’s the last day of January.  We’re still in unsettled times with the pandemic and corruption in our government so deep it would defend sedition and treason.  I go back through my journals on the last day of the month, and this month has been shocking.  To read again what happened on January 6th and in the following days and weeks is hard to believe, so I go to Victor Frankl, a Holocaust survivor.  

“What we “radiate” into the world, the “waves” that emanate from our being, that is what will remain of us when our being itself has long since passed away.” 

I find comfort in waves.  

Meanwhile the full moon from Thursday moves toward the new.

Hazrat Inayat Khan asks: 

Full moon, where will you be going from here? – Into a retreat. Why do you take a retreat after fullness? – To make myself an empty vessel in order to be filled again.

Yes!

This is my intention for the day.

I start my day perusing photos and videos of my grandchild, and reading Heather Cox Richardson.

I’m with a suggestion from Elizabeth Berg. Take titles from the books on your bookshelves and make a poem. I’ll do that later today but right now I’m with these words of Jarvis.

I thought it would be an honor to put Harriet Tubman on the $20.00 bill but now I see that it’s not the right thing to do. She can be honored in a more honest and productive way. You can read Jarvis here:

https://www.freejarvis.org/updates-1/jarvis-journal-faced-with-a-twenty-dollar-bill-full-essay-1?fbclid=IwAR2Lnzhm3S4htycHatp-kE147-Dt-s43jVPvVVgU-58VwPbSGT_TgHAqXgI

A friend tells me her daffodils are popping up. I go to the grocery store and there I see shiny yellow faces – daffodils. Home, I put them in a vase and come to a book I’m editing for a friend. Her words lead me to this link. Tap your feet and bounce.

Rain in the night and more rain coming.  I exult in the cleanse, and these words of William Blake: 

Mere Enthusiasm is the All in All!

I’ve been in a bit of a tender harvest as I pause to digest and integrate all that’s happened and is happening politically.  Perhaps because I was raised to believe we care for each other, I’m shocked at those who see it so differently.

Yesterday afternoon,  I made a fire in the fireplace and watched the sparkling dance as I listened to the crackle and watched the clouds move as day turned to night.  Life seems so rich to me right now.  Yes, my bubble is small, Steve, me, two cats, but there are trees, and I see that though some of them stand with their branches still bare, buds form to emerge in this new month that comes.

January comes from Latin. Janus is the god of beginnings and transitions.  We’re certainly living that.  

I sink into Joy Harjo’s words to guide and warm my day.  

Remember the plants, trees, animal life who all have their families, their histories too. Talk to them, listen to them.

They are alive poems.

It’s been five and a half years of listening to lies and trying to keep our head on straight and our hearts aligned. And now a real press secretary and president and vice-president, a return to decency and care.

This morning I read these words of Brenda Ueland.

Resign yourself tranquilly to doing something slow and worthless for at least an hour.

What a great idea.  A January weekend is before us.  Allow peace and ease to flow through.  There’s work to be done, yes, and the tide pauses as it turns. We, too, can pause, reflect, and renew.

This will lift and spark your heart.

So many tears watching last night and now today this transition to Democracy, Unity and Integrity.  I was up at 2:30 worried something could go wrong, and now today I watch as transition occurs.  I think it should be a National holiday so everyone can watch and partake with gratitude for democracy restored.

If you missed the young poet, here she is.

https://www.npr.org/sections/inauguration-day-live-updates/2021/01/20/958743170/poet-amanda-gorman-reads-the-hill-we-climb

The wind is wild as it blows out the old and brings in the new.   

In the book, The Primary Colors, Alexander Theroux writes that blue is thought of as a cool color but the hottest stars are bluish white.  

Red stars are 4000 degrees.  Yellow stars are 5000, and blue stars are 10,000 degrees.

I must be getting old.  Those numbers don’t sound as huge as they used to.

Last night I was entranced with the crescent moon as it moved across the sky.  It was bright, and yet it only reflects.  I step into what I reflect even as I bring forth from within.

Theroux continues that in “Pyramid texts, the sky is described as green as living plants.”  Does this mean the Egyptians could not perceive the shorter wavelengths of blue light 5000 years ago?

Dorothea in Middlemarch says – “It is strange how deeply colors seem to penetrate one, like scent.”

In going through journals of the past, I come to this from 1997.  A woman I went to Nepal with in 1993 shares this: “I was on a silent retreat in Thailand. I saw a shooting star and the words, “Bye Mom” came out of my mouth.  I found out ten days later my mom died that night.”

We are One in starlight, moonlight, present, past, light, dark, life, death, and especially today, I’m grateful for change, and what tomorrow’s Presidential inauguration opens up and brings.

It’s a day to honor a man of Peace and Love, a Black man.  We thought we’d come a long way and this year we learned we haven’t.

It’s been a sobering year in so many ways, and this week is bringing a change.  The days are longer and energy is revived.  

A.A. Milne who wrote Winnie the Pooh said to listen to the animals.  He even listened to stuffed animals which is pretty remarkable.  

Andre Dubus wrote: “A Zen archer does not try to hit the target. With intense concentration, he draws the bow and waits; the target releases the arrow, and draws it to itself.”

We’ve been focused and waiting and now we’re concentrated on the target: January 20, 2021.

The target releases the arrow and draws it to itself. 

I give thanks for a target of Love and Peace led by those who’ve gone before, and encapsulated now in Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.  May we all be well!