Do you make New Year’s Resolutions? I do. I love new calendars full of unlived days. I love the not-completely-true suggestion that this year I’ll do all those things I always mean to do. I love the notion, as the sign I’ve had on my refrigerator for years says, that “You Can Change Your Life!”
In addition to “fear,” one of the words upon which I’ve been meditating lately is “thrive.” What does it mean to thrive? What would my life look like -- what would your life look like -- if we were thriving? What needs to change in order for us to thrive and which of those things are under our control? New Years Resolutions, for me, are all about figuring out how to thrive and doing what’s necessary in order to thrive.
Along those lines, I looked up this Mary Oliver poem for my friend Rachael this morning:
The Summer Day
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean--
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down--
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
With your one wild and precious life?
And it got me thinking about thriving all over again. I love the final lines:
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
With your one wild and precious life?
So along with all my busy New Years Resolutions, goals, objectives, and lists of chores, along with my Filofax, Blackberry, laptop, cell phone, and iPod, along with the articles I want to write, the classes I’m going to take, and the projects I’m going to complete, I plan to spend more time this year “paying attention,” and “falling down into the grass, being idle and blessed.” I can’t think of a better way to thrive.
Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life in the coming year? How are you going to do it? Pick a tarot card and see what your subconscious is trying to tell you about thriving. I'll interpret it in the comments section if you like.
The Third Time is the Charm
7 months ago