“This is the … still point
of the sun, its cusp and midnight,
the year’s threshold
and unlocking, where the past
lets go of and becomes the future;
The place of caught breath…”
-Margaret Atwood
We are writing to you from a small village high up in the Italian Alps where we will welcome this new year. A storm is raging in these majestic mountains, and we find ourselves looking back over the last decade of life as a nomadic family. A few years ago, when we were teaching English in an ashram in Indonesia, we met a very wise monk. On our first morning, we woke up to chants at 5 AM and joined quietly as the jungle came to life with the sunrise. We asked him over breakfast what time he rises, and he said, “Before any sound can be heard.” When we asked why, he said, “If I am to give love to all that cross my path, I must start by finding it within and feeling it myself.”
We sat in awe thinking of how simple and yet complicated that wisdom was for us in our busy lives. We laughed thinking we were the busy ones with three kids, and yet he was the sole caregiver of 30+ orphans between the ages of 6-17. He said to us, before we left the orphanage later that month, “To give of yourself does not mean to give all of yourself away. Find that space and place every day where you can give to yourself what you so graciously give to others. If you don’t, you may feel that eventually, your well has run dry. All it takes is a few drops a day to keep the love flowing through you. This one drop is how we change the world.”
We talk about this monk’s wisdom almost daily and yet often forget to take time to replenish our energy to continue to support others. This season, standing in this “place of caught breath” on the threshold of a new year is the perfect time to reflect on what the world has taught us so we can welcome all that is to come from a place of excited anticipation versus uncertainty and trepidation.
Below are some of the blogs we have written over the last 10 years from different vantage points around the globe. We hope you find something that resonates with you wherever you are on your journey in whatever corner of the globe you are sitting and reading this story. In other words, we hope you find the inspiration to add drops to your well that can often feel dry after a year and a season of giving…
Have Resolve Not Resolutions (written while living in New Zealand)
“No matter what corner of the world we are in, this season often brings to light the feeling that whatever we are doing is not enough. We have not bought enough, or written enough, or called enough or exercised enough, or volunteered enough. From holidays in the United States to New Zealand to Italy, the feeling always arrives on time. It makes sense then, that a desire to close those gaps comes along with the new year. We are going to make resolutions to shore up all the ways we are not enough!”
Click below for a way to reframe resolutions…
A Monument to Imperfection (written when living in Portugal)
“A lull is a temporary suspension of activity. A lull is a fleeting, fickle, and tenuous gift. The last week of December, before the New Year, is a time when we often feel a lack of activity as compared to the weeks leading up to this threshold. Many of us have been programmed to respond to a lull with action in an effort to fill the discomfort of the unfamiliar calm. But filling the lull is, in a sense, throwing away an unopened gift.”
Click below to read about what is perfect about imperfection…
What Needs to Stop Before We Begin Again (written while living in France)
“I used to feel like filling up the lull between the holiday season and the New Year with more noise, almost afraid to stop running because then I would experience an ending. Our journey around the globe has taught me that there is no ending and this time is a gift to prepare for the year ahead. It is not about goals or resolutions … Yet.”
Click below to read about what a museum curator taught us about the power of a year in review…
The Power of Story (written while living in Southern Italy)
“How did I miss this story? How many other stories did I miss while running around productively with my lists tucked under my arm? I spent an entire day learning about a man in the mountains of Southern Italy and his trade, and somehow I didn’t know about how my Great Uncle spent his days before he retired and bounced me on his knee?”
Click below to read about the stories that surround us and ground us…
The One Simple Ingredient to Making this New Year The Best One Yet (written while living in Indonesia)
“He ended by reminding us that the only barrier to giving and receiving unconditional love is believing we are enough, we have enough, we give enough, we know enough, we make enough, we produce enough. It is not a process of learning, but rather one of remembering something we already know that is so simple and yet so easily forgotten.”
So I ask you, as we collectively stand in this moment as a global community, what is our commitment to feeling, communicating, and acting from a place of love – one we have cultivated within us during this time right before the new year dawns …
“its cusp and midnight, the year’s threshold and unlocking, where the past lets
go
of
and
becomes
the
future”
One
drop
at
a
time?
