In less than two weeks we will be flipping the last page of our 2022 calendars. And this is the time of year when the cold winds of winter blow and cause us to shutter to the interiors. To the warmth of the home-lands; to the inland of the heart-lands; to the solace of winter’s wonder-lands. It’s the magical time of year when I spend a little more time on my innermost world; and since the chilling temperatures drive us to seek warmth and safety among kith and kin, it is a fitting time to be drawn to the glowing embers of reflection and contemplation as another new year approaches. So it is in this spirit that I post this winter’s petition for the new year.

Gratitude…this is what comes to mind as I contemplate the blank, white pages of the new year approaching. The calendar behind me is overflowing with activities: work, play, joy, sorrow…there is much, too much, to hold and appreciate. Life is an abundant, on-going menagerie of experience. I wish only to become more proficient in allowing the fullness of life (the beautiful and the obnoxious) to move me (nudge me please, no shoving) towards a greater love of living; so that I may appreciate the gross and profane to be as necessary as the beautiful and profound. It is the yin and yang, the both/and paradox which I am learning to embrace without the need of certainty. It is gratitude I feel most deeply; and living this life without preconceived ideas about what it should look like lends more life for the living. This life is like one grand, ongoing research project…for my continued growth and evolution.

I had rather live and love where death is king, than have eternal life where love is not.

R.G. Ingersoll

Love…this is the foundation which gives meaning to everything I feel and do in the hours of my days. If I had only one wish for the new year it would be that LOVE would reign front and center in the hearts and minds of those who walk the earth with me in 2023. Love is the language which created the universe. It is the mystery of life which is encoded into every cell, every atom of the cosmos. There is no need to translate our native tongue for the other; we must only learn the dialect of love and take it to all the places we go, whether we are home or abroad. We are not strangers or aliens to ourselves when we love, truly love one another.

True love always involves renunciation of one’s comfort.

Leo Tolstoy

The weakness of love, if there was a weakness, comes from our inability to express and communicate love clearly to our loved ones. It is our ineptness to express love in a manor or language that is recognizable to the beloved. If the oft quoted saying that ‘Love conquers all’ is true, then it can only be false because of human shortfall or failing. The way I see it is this: Love cannot ever lose because as long as the universe exists, Love is! Love is Being without end. And as every beloved knows without fail, true love is felt and known as such. True love conquers all because it does not expect or require reciprocity…true love is a burning bush that does not consume itself. True love is infinite and inextinguishable.

Love has a thousand varied notes to move the human heart.

George Crabbe

Oh, how I wish to ignite true love in my world in 2023! Oh, how I wish to be LOVE, true love, for all who come across my path in 2023. That is my one and only wish…that Love would heal the wounds…the wounds I have created, the wounds others have created…it matters not, who did what…Love being love is the only thing which matters. Yes! May Love be my rule and guide. With an undivided heart, loving into one life at a time. That’s all I hope for…and this will be my anthem for the new year! I will work it out at home, at work, in the gym, on the road, in the community center, in the choir, in the work details and endless appointments yet to fill my days. Yes, I want more of this Love…for all of us…let there be no end.