For New Beginnings

Many years ago, in a time of constraint and self-doubt, I was longing for significant change in my life without a clear pathway forward.  I had a dream in which the philosopher/poet/author John O’Donohue appeared to me.  I’ve always been a dreamer, but a visitation from a long-passed Irish poet was most unusual – even for me.   

We travelled to a place filled with barren, craggy rocks and I sat on them despondently while John seemed chipper, chatting away at all that could be possible.  Then I faded off into some other, less vivid dream.  But as the mundane, side narrative finished, John appeared again and beckoned me to follow him.  We returned to the place we had been before.  No longer barren it was covered in lilac and purple-flowering plants for as far as I could see, the sky filled with light.  Though no words were spoken the message was clear to me – plant the seeds, continue to dream and intend, take steps, and in time something beautiful will come to fruition. 

John O’Donohue has acted as a kind of benevolent guide and resource for me particularly when facing the various thresholds of life.   Though passed from this world long before I read a single line of his prose, I know his works continue to reverberate, resound, and gently guide many others.  Every few years, I feel compelled to re-listen to his audio collection ‘Longing and Belonging’.  Each time I listen, there is some new resonance with what I’m experiencing in my life at that present moment.

Even though it has been many years that dream never faded from my memory.  It feels fitting that serendipitously and without seeking it out, this poem by John O’Donohue has come to meet me again in these times of new beginnings. 

 FOR A NEW BEGINNING 

In out-of-the-way places of the heart,

Where your thoughts never think to wander,

This beginning has been quietly forming,

Waiting until you were ready to emerge.

For a long time it has watched your desire,

Feeling the emptiness growing inside you,

Noticing how you willed yourself on,

Still unable to leave what you had outgrown.

It watched you play with the seduction of safety

And the gray promises that sameness whispered,

Heard the waves of turmoil rise and relent,

Wondered would you always live like this.

Then the delight, when your courage kindled,

And out you stepped onto new ground,

Your eyes young again with energy and dream,

A path of plenitude opening before you.

Though your destination is not yet clear

You can trust the promise of this opening;

Unfurl yourself in the grace of beginning

That is at one with your life’s desire.

Awaken your spirit to adventure;

Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk;

Soon you will be home in a new rhythm,

For your Soul senses the world that awaits you.

At the start of this New Year and all the new beginnings we may be facing whether they be personal, professional, or on our healing journeys may we trust the promise of what they may bring and unfurl into them completely.