A Different New Year

I’ve been in Times Square, New York City, and seen the lighted ball drop from the roof of One Times Square in a worldly tradition; I’ve been on Meherabad Hill at Samadhi standing tightly close together with other celebrants, counting down the seconds at the tomb shrine of the God Man—in a spiritual greeting.

I have danced until I couldn’t any longer, had lobster and champagne, sat quietly on the sofa with an intimate friend, but with aging, moved to quieter nights of an early bedtime, awakening to my new year in sunlight.

This year my New Year began on July 24.

I returned from a refreshing first longer vacation of five weeks in America after three years of only three. At first a small part of my mind was on Meherabad and how exhausting last year had been. My thought became a growing seed in the light of America, a seed of new resolution for how I intended to change my life on my return. Then with my resolution in place, I fully became the mother, the grandmother, and the close friend I was there to be.

Once home the seed grew like a plant. A new shoot was a new idea. Three new leaves were three new inspirations. I was naturally taking better care of myself, of my home, and doing my work more easily. A realization came that I was on a program of daily invisible help for a new life. The program wasn’t keeping at a resolution—it was simply put into place and had taken on its own life of even greater possibilities, and I was the one benefiting. It wasn’t keeping at a resolution, it was keeping up with one that had taken on its own life, and I was the one benefiting.

My gratitude for a new year became exuberantly in place early.

My realization is, “There is opportunity to participate in and enjoy ritual, and there is at times an open door that speaks to you saying, “Come, walk through me to something you cannot now imagine.”

Christmas in July

At my older daughter’s, I sat on the front steps of their large, gray Garrison style home with a border of small bushes in wood chips held by curved edging. It separated the house from a walk of stones along the border’s contour. Beyond that rough-textured grass sloped directly to the street. Farther to my right a massive rock shaped their land and beyond, Lakewood Circle ended at woods. Turning left I looked down a low-angled hill of sparse grass to a copse of tall, narrow trees then the corner. In spite of the cement steps feeling hard, my mind had centered on this peaceful view and my thoughts withdrawn from earlier activities.

Turning to look more closely at the bushes on my right, curious about what had been planted, my interest stopped at a small spruce and I unexpectedly announced, “Christmas in July,” momentarily surprising. Rather than holding with the moment though and thinking of tradition, I questioned whether or not I remembered ever having had a Colorado blue spruce—as I’d identified it by its tag—for a Christmas tree, as if my imagination needed validation.

I remembered going with my dad to tree stands of tightly closed trees delivered in early December. In rows they leaned with tags against poles. We’d walk between every row, stopping as he chose one then another to examine for fullness and height for the living room ceiling. Each tree he stood upright then carefully opened its branches as they resisted. I learned pine needles were long and in groups and spruce needles were short and single and made my own investigations. When the correctly chosen tree came off the porch and into the house, it was put in a stand. My shared job was to keep the stand full of water so our tree stayed fresh until Christmas day.

Back at Meherabad, a month later, one of my first books read was from the Mitford series. When I reached a certain page, I turned its corner down because it’s the day before Christmas. Father Tim, a retired Episcopal minister, serving as needed, who’d married his wife Cynthia in his sixties, is contemplating the beauty of their family tree. His reminiscence is of the different trees that he’d had over the years: “white pine, cedar, blue spruce, and Fraser fir.”* So the little blue spruce had qualified.

My realization is, “As we are open in our relationship to nature, and to the mystery of life, we are apt later to find a sign telling us a connection questioned, had been true.


*Jan Karon, Mitford series, Shepherds Abiding

Preface

For the coming three weeks, I am returning to writing A Flower for God. “Christmas in July” will be the post for a season of celebrating Christmas, Hanukkah, and the Winter Solstice. On December 30, “A Different New Year” will welcome 2016. To new readers and current followers I once more appreciate and gratefully acknowledge you.

In inner peace, Prema

PREFACE

 A Flower for God, in its earliest stages of writing, was born the third week of September 2003, in Meher Baba’s shrine at Meherabad, Arangaon, India. Following an inner voice to leave and begin writing, an obsession began that lasted five months, until the writing stopped as suddenly as it had started. For two-and-a-half years the pages remained untouched. Then, in September 2006, a second message came. It was time to return to writing. 

These chapters are memories of my spiritual awakening and journey to God that began long before I was aware. What had been undefined and unresolved in childhood erupted in my thirties. At forty-seven, my spiritual nature appeared, to leave me at an abyss at fifty-four. Trusting my spiritual teacher, I made a leap of faith toward real love. 

© A Flower for God