New Years Eve...

In an hour, the clock will roll to midnight, imposing on the flow of the seasons the ending of one year, and the beginning of another.
I have had dozens of Facebook well wishes, emails and texts pour in today, all on various lines of "Happy New Year, may next year be better..." It has been a hard year for many, both on the personal level and on a much wider scope. War, uncertainties, politics, poverty, strained and damaged economies, and illness....it has been a difficult ending year to the decade. It is indeed my fervent prayer that things will improve.

However...I want to say, when I look back over this year, despite mine and Dreamweaver's challenges and struggles, I see so many good things. The wonderful challenges of school as we come closer to graduations and the promise of a more expanded future and careers...the love of friends and family, whom we treasure and love, a renewal of our spiritual journeys and the realization of our creative talents and how they might be expanded. Even the things that have been difficult challenges became opportunities to learn, to grow, to have faith, and to work together to over come them.

Perhaps above all, Dreamweaver and I are together, and our love remains strong and undaunted, full of life and humor and joy. She is the most precious person in my life, and our marriage is the most important thing in my life. She encourages me to be a better person, she inspires me to reach greater heights and further goals than I would have ever dreamed possible. And she loves me, as I love her - a miraculous gift that I intend to treasure every day for the rest of my life. I am grateful beyond words for the gift of our lives together and what we have become together; stronger, more resilient and greater than the sum of ourselves. And yet we have also retained the respect and honor of our selves as individuals - joined but not subsumed, unique and whole also unto ourselves. This is not an easy journey, this relationship. Its health and wholeness requires a daily mindfulness and renewal that is as important and necessary as breathing. But it is our joy and our greatest gift, that we are together, for the past 6 years and are moving into the blessing of yet another.

Happy New Year...may the coming year indeed be better, be prosperous, be safer and more fulfilling for all of us. But may we also look back on the year just past, and see the blessings and joy that have been a part of it for us as well.

Blessed Be. See you all in the next post...in 2010!