Happy New Year

(mon dec 31st)

ed just took the kids to the store to buy sena goggles. she got some cash for her bday, and she's really excited to be able to buy something for herself; what she wants at the moment is goggles.
so i'm home alone.
as soon as they left i put on some music and started dancing. i got some new cd's at christmas: bruce springsteen's "magic", "eddie vedder's "into the wild", and lhasa's "the living road". i put them on and let myself move, and soon i felt like myself again. i think that i spun off my center in the past couple of weeks with everything going on. i've been feeling empty, but with the music and dancing i'm feeling connected again.
i also really need to go outside, it looks so beautiful, and i haven't been in a while; at least not in a way that i was able to appreciate.

today is new year's eve, and we're not doing anything special. but i find it fun to think a little about the past year, and about the one to come. the past year already seems like a blur. i can't think of any specifics, but generally i have a very good feeling about it. i've enjoyed being home with the kids, and i have to say that not for a second did i regret my decision to quit my job. that much is clear.

something else i feel when thinking about the past year (and i guess about the past in general) is a certain richness. richness in terms of what i've experienced, what life brought me across.

in thinking of the future, of the coming year, i can't say that i have any particular goals or aspirations. i really think that i'll be content to just be doing what i've been doing so far. nothing stands out as something to accomplish. unless you count getting through each day with some kind of grace and awareness...
even though my days are more or less the same when seen from a certain perspective, at the same time, they contain such a multitude of experience, especially if you think of how different the experice of each season, each day, each mood, etc. can be. so my hope is to be there for that, to be awake through each changing moment and to accept, ot even welcome, whatever experience it brings me.


speaking about experience - i've been asking myself, how can i welcome difficult experiences? and i'm not necessarily referring to dealing with some personal problem; sometimes relating to other people's suffering, past or present, can also be very painful. this happened recently when i read the book "black elk speaks". i wanted very much to keep reading it, yet at the same time, each time i did, i felt so sad and depressed, and even angry, that it took me a while to come out of it and be effective in my daily activities again.

i think that this happens to many people, especially as we're all constantly exposed to so much violence and suffering through the media. so one question that came up at one of our women's circle was "how do we deal with this onslaught of suffering and destruction we see, hear, read about, etc., and still maintain our sensitivity and compassion?". one friend had a suggestion which i find very useful.

in essence, what she said is that she lets in only as much bad news as will alow her heart to open a little wider; only that much, and no more. so for example, if you're sitting in front of the TV and you're listening to how people are suffering because of war, natural disaster, ignorance, and on and on, are you just sitting there totally detached, not letting any of it touch you? or are you so overwhelmed with grief that you feel despondent? (this is usually me). what my friend is saying is that it's up to you to figure out when you had enough. so that you can still feel some compassion, and still be able to take some kind of positive action, instead of feeling numb, detached, powerless, or anything along those lines.

i think i'll end this here and go for a walk.
Happy New Year and Peace!