New Year - New ... what?

January!  It's always so full of promise, so alive with expectation and resolution and mystery.  I often look forward to the beginning of a new year, never really knowing which way things will turn.  This year, I am lucky to ease into 2013.  With only part time employment, winter weather and a shrinking local community of friends, I am blessed to have some time on my hands.  I've soaked it up with culture.  Movies, museums, books.  Even upgraded to the new I-phone 5 so that I could properly balance that feeling of enlightenment which art imbues with the healthy dose of stupidity that new gagdets bring.  ;-)

And therein lies the conundrum... in this new year, I feel both empowered/optimistic and bewildered/lost - all at the same time.  The world feels ripe, alive with opportunity and possibility, and yet I feel like the man on the brink of "two roads diverged in a yellow wood" (Frost)... not knowing which way to go or which prospects to pursue.  The typical artist struggle between commerce and creativity throbs inside my brain. I need to earn more income and yet I long for more fulfilling projects and meaningful ways to spend my time. Perhaps this age old debate is at the heart of my dichotomy of emotion.

Some people long for a crystal ball and even seek one out.  I recently had a friend gift one to me.  A free session with a psychic who uses lots of numerology.  Granted, she said some amazing things, but even her inner future spotlight could not predict a path, a direction, or any usable advice for me.  As usual, the answers lie inside.  Time to turtle duck inside my shell and simply "be" with all the energy and all the possibilities.  Time will tell.  And Guidance will instruct my feet.  For now, I give in to the humility and the vulnerability of confusion.  In fact, I welcome it.  I open myself to every path and every option and I embrace the cornucopia of opportunity that 2013 brings...

As we ease into this year, let us all pause and bring awareness to the full potential of the present moment.  It sings with unpredictability and joyful creative power.

This wee little poem is called Temptation.  Perhaps written at a time like this - on the verge, on the brink or in a lull between great things.  Somehow it feels relevant at the start of something new to simply stop.  To quit.  And then, perhaps, begin again...

To quit

a striking chord
the rhythm of cessation
still
disconnected from the Blood
the pulsing river of change
that is today
Life
 

To stop

for just one Breath
clear and deep
unsolicited
a breath like Birth
to let me start
Anew

©2013 DOS

The excerpts of all of the poems presented in this blog are copyright protected, as each and every poem has been copyrighted.   For a complete copy of any poem, feel free to email your request to: duvallosteennyc@gmail.com.