AND SO IT IS a new month, in a new year, in a new decade*. It is a season that has found my soul unusually quiet, unusually uninspired.
I have not made a list of resolutions, for one. Nor have I made the counter list “Things From Last Year I Am Proud Of,” ** an idea which came to me last January and an exercise that proved both clarifying and powerful. I have thought about both of these, for certain I have, and yet I have done nothing about either. Instead I have spent these first days of 2020 in a state of slow rather than sure, more solemn than reflective.
Gratefully, my life (at the moment) allows for this. We are in the mountains where I am afforded this immense luxury. We are alone, Tim and I, and the weather is wet and cold, and there is little that demands our attention. And so I have slept in, and I have sipped my coffee in pajamas, and I have sat and watched as the thick fog rolls and intermittent rain sweeps across our steep, bare, backyard meadow.
There is little on my mind as I’ve done this. There has been no grand planning and there have been few deep thoughts but for the strong, heartful prayers for people I love who are facing real challenge or heartbreak. (It is a list that seems extraordinarily long these days.) I have read more than usual; I have written exactly NONE.
I have been content, it seems, to let the days pass.
I DON’T EVEN KNOW what the point of this post is, to tell you the truth, other than to acknowledge there are seasons that are fruitful and seasons that feel dormant; there is planning and growing and stretching–and there is resetting. Resting. And releasing, perhaps, although about that last point I am not sure at all, for “releasing” is surely something that requires consideration and thought. Forethought and awareness.
HERE IS WHAT I do know. In these first days of 2020 God has enveloped my world in silence and fog, and He has tuned my heart to stillness.
It feels, I would have to say, as if He has set my soul to sit, and to watch, and for once, simply to wait.
XXOO
*Lest you feel the need to debate that last point, yes, there are varying positions on the matter, and so I turned here for confirmation of the point. And anyway. Why complicate matters.
**Do let me encourage you to read the post, Taking Stock, and to make your “What I’m Proud of” list. You can find it here. It is one thing of value and encouragement I can offer you from this post 🙂
Play, Pause, Repeat
A joyful cycle
I love your interpretations–especially the PAUSE part! XXOO
Even the soil must rest before putting forth healthy blooms once more.
🙂
Beautiful!
I loved this post. Thank you!
Acceptance.
xo
meg
As always, you are the wise one. Love you. XXOO
(1) Those images are gorgeous. They remind me of scrimshaw. Cinematic scrimshaw…which makes no sense except it does. I want them on my wall.
(2) As a dancer and maybe more so as a choreographer.. it is the moments of stillness and slowness that reverberate most deeply with grace and beauty. It is the pause in mid-air *after* the leap that we cherish the most — not the leap itself.
This is so beautiful it brought tears. You are so right. Thank you, friend.
I love listening / emptying negative energy and filling my soul with this song about waiting —-https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=o8Djszk4hG4&sns=tw
Oh, Marie. What a gift. Thank you for sharing the link and the song. As you said, it fills my soul. 🙂
Ugh I too feel this deep down in my soul, just a here I am I hope thats enough kind of rawness to the start of the new year which it makes more since to me if I say “rawness to the end of the last decade.” I have prayed for a word of intention for this coming year and I think “content” will be my word. You know me, always reaching and striving and stretching, and I think it would be good for me to learn some contentment.
Oh, friend. “Content” is such a good word. Although I have to say–you have such drive and joy, I hope you have a contented heart but your spirit keeps pushing hard! Thank you for sharing 🙂