Twelve New Year's: Part II

2017: Beginning With Bach

And so it begins with Bach. In a year that seems to promise nothing but fear, chaos, mean-spiritedness, the triumph of ignorance, why not look back to the certainty, grandeur and glory of Bach’s extraordinary intellect and imagination? Every time I play something by this man—and it has been often in my life and even more so recently—I am in awe of the multitude of notes that pour forth, each in its proper place and flowing inexorably from one to the other, a veritable river emptying into the ocean of Spirit. The sheer volume of his work—over 1000 works that were preserved—and the range of his composition: chorales, cantatas, Masses, Passions, orchestral works, chamber music, organ music, clavier music and more— is simply staggering. …

 

 

2018: New Year’s Resolution

Year in, year out, we make our vows,

Refuse the milk from sacred cows.

Build sheds of dreams, brick by brick,

Re-light our candle, trim our wick.

Step forth into the New Year bold

Tell again the tales re-told.

Sure that now we’ll get it right

Live fully in our self-lit light.

Free as the wind, our chains unbound

Until once more the year winds down.

Puzzles still with no solution
Again, our New Year’s Resolution.

 

2019: Winter Lemonade

The calendar has turned and not a single one of creation’s four-legged or winged creatures cares. It’s only us big-brained bi-peds that need to invest this day with more meaning than the day before or after. I, for example, wanted the day to announce the possibilities of the next 364 like the opening theme of a grand symphony, an intentional and enticing melody that would keep singing throughout the year. And so I stepped into my thread-worn Zen robes and chanted a full sutra book, much to the annoyance of my wife who was trying to sleep late. Won my opening ritual Solitaire game, re-wrote a section in my emerging book, played Bach Partitas on the piano. It was an auspicious start. 

 

And then things took a dubious turn. A call from school about an unexpected schedule change that would mean either missing the opening day of school next Fall or cancelling my summer course. Finding my bike’s tire flat again after just getting it fixed. Walking it to the bike store that my wife said was open (she had checked online) and finding it closed. These were not good signs.…

 

2020: Looking Ahead

Amidst all the reasons to despair, I keep planting my flag in the fertile field of hope. Go on as if something called normal can continue and it makes perfect sense to start the year chanting ancient Buddhist sutras, memorizing a poem, writing a poem, playing Bach and jazz on the piano, riding my bike to the ocean, cooking a hearty black bean soup. 

 

But working on this poem while biking, I fell into the crack of hard questions to face. Like the scientist’s dire predictions of how much time our doomed planet has left. I get that their motivation is for us to get to work and of course, I hope we will and it will start to slow things down and dare I suggest, even reverse some of the damage? So I’ll leave my last line in with that cautious optimism, in hopes that it will remind us to get to that work. 

 

And here’s to a decade where the best of us rises up!… (a poem follows)

 

2021: Resolution

Each morning I greet the day with a half-an-incense stick of meditation. Legs crossed, back straight, arms circled and hands touching in the ancient mudra, I breathe myself into the world. Sometimes entertaining the planning mind’s projected program, sometimes letting it flit by and dissolve as a good Buddhist should. 3 bows at the end, out to the deck for another bow to the Kwan Yin (Goddess of Compassion) statue that looks over our garden. Back in for my 3-minute back stretches and to the table for breakfast.

 

While I have been sitting zazen, my oatmeal has been absorbing the boiling water I pour into the bowl and then cover and the timing is impeccable. I breathe in the air, the oatmeal the water and we’re both ready at the same time. I deal out the cards for my ritual 3 games of solitaire and eat while I ponder the possibilities of which card to move.…

 

(Thjs post ends with a radical resolution: Eat the oatmeal first, with more attention. Then the cards. 

And even with a simple resolution like this, I failed to uphold it!)

 

2022: Looking Back

“I intend to live forever. So far so good.”

 

To paraphrase that joke, I think 2022 is going to be a GREAT year!! So far, so good! Personally, in my little ritual ways, I sat a longer meditation this morning, had a healthy mochi breakfast and rice and beans lunch and soup and salad dinner, played piano for over two hours, walked 8 miles through the city and looked back over my journals to see what happened last year…