Armchair Zen

Here we are again. The shortest day of the year draws to a close.

With the Solstice my new year begins.

Sure, we’ll have a party in 10 days and we’ll turn that paper hanging in the kitchen.

(Or rather, we’ll hang a new calendar for the “paper new year”.)

My celebration began yesterday. A kind of New Year’s Eve feeling filled me as the 20th expired.

Today the Big Blue ball on which we ride crosses imaginary lines that would be measured in the millions of miles.

As we conserve our angular momentum on our course around the gravity anchor of our solar system, the tilt of our wobbling globe begins to be exposed to increasing amounts of daylight. Starting tomorrow.

Each year, the time lapsed between my longest day and my shortest seems to pass more quickly.

This cannot be, of course, in a system that has had 14 billion years to find its rhythm.

For me, each day is a page in The Book of A Thousand Seasons that makes up my life.

I clearly recall standing under a warm, June sky, setting my sights on this next milepost.

In the past three hundred sixty-five and one-quarter days I have filled my countless hours with more beauty than can be related in a single volume.

From the sky to the water, from the valleys to the mountains.

With family and friends. With my speechless canine companion.

With children and grandchildren and siblings and nieces and nephews.

I have exchanged correspondences with some of the finest people I have ever known.

I have felt kindred.

I have spent silent hours in nature’s lap.

Watched the moon and stars transit the sky.

Waved hello to the Robins of Spring, and goodbye to the Geese of Autumn.

I have taken down from the shelves of the past the warmest memories of my dearest friends.

Lingered over them. Let them fill my spirit.

I have cried.

For my people. For the people of the world.

For my planet, and the delicate living things that inhabit it.

I have laughed.

With the snow. With the sparrows.

With the sun and moon.

I have loved.

All that is laid before me.

All that which my wondering eyes behold.

And the Great Cosmos has lived and loved and laughed and cried with me.

For another year.

And, starting tomorrow, I shall do it all again.

Happy New Year!

Seek peace,

Paz