From The Innkeepers

January 2023 Blog
Blessing for the New Year

I count the poet/priest John O’Donohue among my most important spiritual teachers. We share a kinship for mountain landscapes, his preferably was in the middle of his native landscape in Ireland at Connemara. Not being blessed to live in a mountain landscape, my kinship rests with all the ones where my eyes have lighted, my feet have walked, or my hands have touched, from Kilimanjaro to the Sangre de Christos to Canadian Rockies. They speak to us of ascension and descension, and the changing quality and nature of light playing on the faces of rock as a metaphor for much of our lives, and the importance of paying attention in the shadow of such greatness.

One of my favorite prayers that he wrote was what he called a “Morning Offering”, but I would like to reframe and share it with you as a “Blessing for the New Year”.

I bless all the days that have come before this one-
The days that have nourished my heart
And set the ghosts of longing free

All that is eternal in me
Welcomes the wonder of this new year
The brightness that it creates,
Offering time for each thing to arise and illuminate.

I place on the altar of the dawning of this new year of 2023 and offer to it
The quiet loyalty of breath,
The tent of thought where I shelter
And all the beauty that is drawn to my eyes

May my mind come alive this year
To the invisible geography that invites me to explore new frontiers
To break the dead shells of yesterdays, to risk being disturbed and changed.

May I be given the courage each day of this year to live the life that I would love,
To postpone my dreams no longer, but to do at last what I came here for, and to waste my heart on fear no more.

We hope you find some meaning in this blessing. We also want to thank you for being part of our lives for the past many years. As we turn the page on the calendar at the Inn this year for the 20th time, we thank you for helping to make it our happy place. We look forward to spending time with you and unraveling some of our dreams together. More than anything we hope for each of you that at the end of this year you may say that all of those things you placed on the altar of these 365 yet to be lived new days are made new because you payed attention to them. We hope that when all is said and done that all those places where you set your hands to the multitude of tasks that need doing, that you make an impact on both those you love and also the wider scope of the world around you.
Blessings be to you and your families.

With deep gratitude,
Marcia, Pat, and Sharon