Happy New Year!

I'm back in the Good News business after the Big Thaw in the Pacific Northwest and several days of weather enforced, but welcome, contemplation. I came to the conclusion that despite mounting domestic and international concerns, there is Only Optimism for Obama in the Offing. We can only look up and look ahead, our desire for better times buoyed by hope and anchored with possibility.

So, I begin 2009 with this: The Obama family is on their way to their new home in Washington, DC because school starts on Monday and serious business awaits the President elect. In the meantime, thousands are volunteering to help at the inauguration, because, as reported in the Washington Post today, "There's a hunger out there. People want to get involved. People want to be a part of this thing . . . a part of history."

Today would have been Poet/Philosopher John O'Donohue's 53rd birthday. Here is a New Year's Day Blessing from his book, Benedictus. This is also for my father, Kelsey, who is celebrating his 75th birthday today. Happy Birthday, Dad!

A New Year Blessing

BEANNACHT

by John O'Donohue for his mother, Josie

On the day when

The weight deadens

On your shoulders

And you stumble,

May the clay dance

To balance you.

And when your eyes

Freeze behind

The grey window

And the ghost of loss

Gets into you,

May a flock of colours,

Indigo, red, green

And azure blue,

Come to awaken in you

A meadow of delight.

When the canvas frays

In the currach of thought

And a stain of ocean

Blackens beneath you,

May there come across the waters

A path of yellow moonlight

To bring you safely home.

May the nourishment of the earth be yours,

May the clarity of light be yours,

May the fluency of the ocean be yours,

May the protection of the ancestors be yours.

And so may a slow

Wind work these words

Of love around you,

An invisible cloak

To mind your life.

I miss you, John . . . rest peacefully. Your spirit is alive.