What a Year: Prayer Trees, the Luck of the Irish, No Time To Hurry, and Big Love: Everyday Magic, Day 1,131
- Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg
- 3 hours ago
- 4 min read
What a year, just about everyone I know is saying. Here's some of mine in 14 blog posts spanning the seasons. Thanks for being here as part of my community. I wish you all your own everyday magic.
Loving Kat -- January 3: "Grief is like a giant sack filled with large, angular rocks and also ripped up piles of feather pillows. It’s impossible to get hold of and carry somewhere that makes sense. It’s a mess for the nervous system too as well as a panorama of emotional distress thrown into a blender...." Read more.
Being Refuges for Each Other and the Goodness of Jack -- February 10: "I've been thinking lately about how we can be refuges of acceptance, calm,and love for each other. After all, it's been and it is a helluva time (and time out of time)...." Read more.
"Go Outside and Look for God" and Getting Through Impossible Times -- March 5: "In the very long year that was January, Cindy, my acupuncturist, told me a story: another client of hers, when distraught about the election and the then-just-starting barrage of awful things happening, realized her job now was to 'go outside and look for God.' Those words took my breath away, then gave it back, and it keeps helping me breathe...." Read more.
What Do We Do? Two Images, One Day -- April 9: "But just like we shouldn't stop acting because we don't know what will make a difference, we shouldn't stop speaking, writing, making art, or dancing in the living room either. Life wants to show itself and unfold through us even if we have no idea why or how...." Read more.
How to Write a Book Out of Cancer, Love of Land, Fear of Death, and a Pandemic -- April 30: "1. Find out you have a cancer you never heard of so didn’t suspect, and in your eye no less! Luckily, you grabbed your notebook when the ophthalmologist said the C-word, so you're already writing...." and 24 more steps. Read more.
The Power of Retreats -- May 19: "Something shifts, relaxes, re-orders itself, lets loose, or otherwise alters. And in returning home after the retreat, we carry that shift in us, even if re-entry mode floods us tasks and troubles. It's like discovering a secret pond in the center of your soul, hanging out on its edges in moonlight, then leaving but now knowing it is always there. We carry that expansive and replenishing energy in and with us...." Read more.
What Having the Flu Showed Me About Loving My People -- June 5: "Life is tuning me toward wanting to show up, not just when it all goes to shit, but at large swaths and in small details. If there's one thing I've felt body-sized pangs of regrets about, it's rushing myself in conversation with other on the phone or at chance meetings at the Merc because I have such a big-ass pile of THINGS TO DO in all CAPS biting at my heels....." Read more.
A Letter to You on How It Started and How It's Going -- July 14: "Thank you so much for you being on the other end of this blog, whether you've just climbed onboard or have been traveling with me, post by post, for a while. I'm wildly grateful for your company, helping me find a little more light, clarity, humor, meaning, and connection...." Read more.
In Praise of Mary and How There's No Time to Hurry -- August 6: "When our friend Mary Wharff died less than a week ago, her husband Andy shared that her mantra for the summer was 'no time to hurry.' I cannot stop thinking of this or about Mary, a human of great grace, good humor, shining presence, and easy conversation...." Read more.
Walking with Prayer Trees -- August 29: "Turns out there's so much more to story, in fact, there are story trees with horseshoe-shaped branches to transmit narratives to the Ute people across generations. Among the Ute prayer trees are burial trees to memorialize a great leader or medicine person, grandmother trees which sound like they can also be story trees, pointer trees to aim people toward sacred sites, and prophesy trees that point toward the future...." Read more.
Ireland: When a Dream Comes True -- September 21: "I must have been five or six when I first saw a picture of Ireland and knew I would go there one day. I'm not sure where this came from -- I don't have any Irish ancestry..." Read more.
You Are My People and I Am Yours: A Talk on Reaching Out in Tender and Tumultuous Times -- October 21: "There is so much we don’t know about what’s going to happen no matter how many commentators tell us about what specific playbook is in action. This is not to deny that awful things are set in motion or already rolling over many people in horrendous ways, but so much of this story is not written yet. We are living in the middle of it without knowing the arc or ending...." Read more.
What If We're More Generous Than We Know? -- November 14: "At the same time, I've been seeing unprecedented generosity at work and in play. Exhibit A: This photo of a car filled with 150 meal kits, everything from chicken and dumplings to bean and lentil chili...." Read more.
Trying Not To Be So Hard on Myself -- December 14: "It doesn't take much to turn my inner bitch mites (great phrase from my friend Sara) upon myself. Sometimes the smallest error, flaw, or mishap sets them to biting, leaving tiny welts or itchiness for hours....." Read more.
