The Value of Silence in a Loud New Year

The pause before an exclamation and after.

An unquantifiable insight.

Walk outside and sit.

Let the blue in, let the whistles and whirrings and guttural growlings in
the sable of fallow soil enter your thoughts. The shudder of last leaves – so much beyond each of us, having nothing to do with the I (fragile waterskins that we are), can tell us a new story that has nothing at all to do with our wants and wishes, our lies and dreams. And yet we are in the whole hurtling curved conundrum of the universe. In it for keeps – until our last little breath is drawn and we get to know, or forever not know, what is on the other side of that fathomless sleep.

Lucky us.

The notion that we are specs, the smallest of soul motes in a vast sea of motes and diatoms and configurations of matter that astound and inspire and baffle and stir:

that is something to sing about,

or something to tip one’s head back and gaze into,
speechless.

Shot through with the minerals and light and zest and frothy conflagrations of
who we are
and all that is beyond who we are.

Wishing each of us fortitude, clarity and kindness.

Skål!