New Year's Eve Readings

This New Year's Eve we welcomed 2022 with a cozy practice and some inspiring words, here are all the readings from our workshop:






"Our true home is in the present moment.
To live in the present moment is a miracle.
The miracle is not to walk on water.
The miracle is to walk on the green Earth in the present moment,
to appreciate the peace and beauty that are available now.
Peace is all around us in the world and in nature, and within us;
It is in our bodies and our spirits.
Once we learn to touch this peace,
we will be healed and transformed.
It is not a matter of faith,
it is a matter of practice."
-Thich Naht Hanh

---

Silence by Hafiz
A day of Silence
Can be a pilgrimage in itself.

A day of Silence
Can help you listen
To the Soul play
Its marvelous lute and drum.

Is not most talking
A crazed defense of a humbling fort?

I thought we came here
To surrender in Silence,

To yield to Light and Happiness,

To Dance within
In celebration of Love's Victory!

The Guest House by Rumi
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
​A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
​Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
​The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
​Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.
Skinning Your Knees on God by Hafiz
Little by little,
You will turn into stars.

Even then, my dear,
You will only be
A crawling infant,
Still skinning your knees on Gad.

Little by little,
You will turn into
The whole sweet, amorous Universe
In heat
On a wild spring night,

And become so free
In a wonderful, secret
And pure Love
That flows 
From a conscious,
One-pointed,
Infinite need for Light.

Even then, my dear,
The Beloved will have fulfilled 
Just a fraction,
Just a fraction!
Of a promise 
He wrote upon your heart.

When your soul begins
To Ever blow and laugh
And spin in Eternal Ecstasy--

O little by little, 
You will turn into God.

"We are all on a journey together...
To the center of the universe...
Look deep
Into yourself, into another.
It is to a center which is everywhere
That is the holy journey...
First you need only look:
Notice and honor the radiance of
Everything about you...
Play in this universe. Tend
All these shining things around you;
The smallest plant, the creatures and
Objects in your care.
Be gentle and nurture. Listen...
As we experience and accept
All that we really are...
We grow in care.
We begin to embrace others
As ourselves, and learn to live
As one among many." -Anne Hillman

The Winter of Listening by David Whyte
No one but me by the fire,
my hands burning
red in the palms while
the night wind carries
everything away outside.
All this petty worry
while the great cloak
of the sky grows dark
and intense
round every living thing.
What is precious
inside us does not
care to be known
by the mind
in ways that diminish
its presence.
What we strive for
in perfection
is not what turns us
into the lit angel we desire,
what disturbs
and then nourishes
has everything
we need.
What we hate
in ourselves
is what we cannot know
in ourselves but
what is true to the pattern
does not need
to be explained.
Inside everyone
is a great shout of joy
waiting to be born.

Even with summer
so far off
I feel it grown in me
now and ready
to arrive in the world.
All those years
listening to those
who had
nothing to say.
All those years
forgetting
how everything
has its own voice
to make
itself heard.
All those years
forgetting
how easily
you can belong
to everything
simply by listening.
And the slow
difficulty
of remembering
how everything
is born from
an opposite
and miraculous
otherness.
Silence and winter
have led m to that
otherness.
So let this winter
of listening
be enough
for the new life
I must call my own.

Every sound
has a home
from which it has come to us
and a door
through which it is going
again
out into the world
to make another home.
We speak
only with the voices
of those
we can hear ourselves
and the body has a voice
only for that portion
of the body of the world
it has learned to perceive.
It becomes
a world itself
by listening
hard
for the way
it belongs.
There it can
learn
how it
must be
and what
it must do.
And
here
in the tumult
of the night
I hear the walnut
above the child’s swing
swaying
its dark limbs
in the wind
and the rain now
come to
beat against my window
and somewhere
in this cold night
of wind and stars
the first whispered
opening of
those hidden
and invisible springs
that uncoil
in the still summer air
each yet
to be imagined
rose.