Dear friends, this week brings us winter solstice, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, and Christmas, not to mention National Crossword Puzzle Day, Mathematics Day, and National Bacon Day.

Curiously, in times of great activity, with crowds at every turn, it’s easier than ever to get caught up in our individual plans and dramas, our personal joys and heartaches. Underneath the connecting and the planning and the giving, there is a current of me-ness running, sweet and precious and flawed.

For all of our me’s, a dose of David Whyte can be a blessing.

May we all recognize the dream-ladders to divinity that surround us today.

Everything is Waiting for You, by David Whyte

Your great mistake is to act the drama
as if you were alone. As if life
were a progressive and cunning crime
with no witness to the tiny hidden
transgressions. To feel abandoned is to deny
the intimacy of your surroundings. Surely,
even you, at times, have felt the grand array;
the swelling presence, and the chorus, crowding
out your solo voice. You must note
the way the soap dish enables you,
or the window latch grants you freedom.
Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity.
The stairs are your mentor of things
to come, the doors have always been there
to frighten you and invite you,
and the tiny speaker in the phone
is your dream-ladder to divinity.

Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into the
conversation. The kettle is singing
even as it pours you a drink, the cooking pots
have left their arrogant aloofness and
seen the good in you at last. All the birds
and creatures of the world are unutterably
themselves. Everything is waiting for you.

****

Winter 2022 Book List

In these darkest days of the year, as the holiday hubbub subsides, there is nothing like the comfort of curling up with a great book. I’m happy to share a few favorites here, a mix of new issues and old friends.

Here’s to the solstice, the return of the light!