Affirmation for 2013

Love After Love

The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other's welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

 

Derek Walcott

 

I heard this poem being recited by mindfulness meditation  "guru" Jon Zabat Zinn during the NPR show "On Being". To me, it exemplifies what we do when we sit. We get to know ourselves intimately. 

My goals in 2013 are to develop and express a deeper compassion for all and to get to know myself more intimately. I have other goals, of course, like spending less, saving more, getting super fit and healthy, and getting organized, but compassion and self awareness are interwoven in all of that.

In addition to this affirmation, there is a practice that I read about in a recent Buddhist magazine that I am going to try. During a sitting, you listen to the silence, and then, to yourself, in your head, say your name, repeatedly. I think this practice helps to unearth how even our name is, just that, a name, but it does not define us. I don't know how to say it more eloquently, but I get the feeling that sometimes we cling so much to things that we think define us, like our jobs, our relationships, our name, our status. When none of that defines our true nature.

2012 was a hell of a year. I am sure 2013 will be in its own way. I am leaning into what will be, hoping that my continuous practice will sustain me and help me to be a bodhisattva, preaching, teaching, and healing all sentient beings.

Namaste Ase