January 2020
Let Your Light Shine
Listen to the audio version by Dorothy
Welcome to the first Innisfree Moment of 2020. Whether you are a relatively new reader or listener, or have been journeying with me for all or part of the last eleven years, thank you! Thank you for your input in so many ways - friendship, support, feedback, and shared thoughts that triggered ideas for future topics. 2019 was a challenging year for many of us, but with shared and caring camaraderie, we gave each other hope and strength to carry on.
A few weeks ago we greeted and welcomed in a new year and a new decade, each in our own way, perhaps with intentions for the months ahead. I think of a new year as the blank page of the book we write, open in welcome anticipation for our next chapter. It wants us to write from our heart, using our unique gifts, many of which were strengthened by those past challenges.
A never-forgotten phrase from a movie re-made for TV in 1979, The Corn is Green, features a Welsh coal-mining town at the turn of the 20th century. Katharine Hepburn, as headmistress of a school, sees the potential genius in a young coal-miner, Morgan Evans, when he writes an essay about going down into the darkness of the mine and how each one must turn on their own light.
So we might question, how do we turn on, and let our light shine? Do you believe, with me, that being kind to ourselves and others, as well as honouring our gifts and talents, are significant ways? Is our waking thought one of gratitude for a new dawn? Are we content, feel that our life has meaning? A New Year suggestion by Robert Holden is to ask ourselves: If I was enjoying my life 10 percent more than now, what would I be doing more of, less of, or differently? A welcoming smile to another can result in a warm exchange. The late Danish classical pianist and comedian, Victor Borge, often said: A smile is the shortest distance between two people. In agreement with Borge is Constance Isherwood, a still practicing lawyer in Victoria, British Columbia, who celebrated her 100th birthday this week, continues to go into her office each day, and has no plans to retire. Her advice, she quipped in a radio interview, is to keep breathing, keep working and keep smiling. Now, while 'working' may have a personal interpretation for each of us, surely it is whatever gives meaning to our day.
Being kind to ourselves can also mean amending or cancelling a well-laid intention. In the spirit of true confession, I did that, despite my shared December's intention to complete jig-saw puzzles. Santa nephew did gift two smaller ones of 300 and 500 pieces, but after three weeks with minimal results, I admitted 'jig-sawing' was neither my skill nor my fun priority ... And I would add, at this time! So they have been donated for someone else's mastery, and I celebrated joyfully by donning my apron and making a comfort-food bread pudding, which I am thoroughly enjoying! Are your best-laid intentions giving you joy, or do they need to be given a lower priority, tweaked or eliminated? ... And, please, with no guilt! You will be lighting up your life with kindness.
The next Innisfree Moment will be in March. From my heart to yours ... a hundred thousand beautiful blessings. Namasté!
Dorothy B.
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Rev. Dorothy Blandford, Ph.D
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Surrey, BC, V4A 6E1, Canada
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