Opening My Eyes & Ears to a New Year

                                                                 Frink Centre -- January 1, 2024

1 Open my eyes, that I may see

glimpses of truth thou hast for me;

place in my hands the wonderful key

that shall unclasp and set me free.

Silently now I wait for thee,

ready, my God, thy will to see.

Open my eyes, illumine me, Spirit divine!

2 Open my ears, that I may hear

voices of truth thou sendest clear;

and while the wavenotes fall on my ear,

everything false will disappear.

Silently now I wait for thee,

ready, my God, thy will to see.

Open my ears, illumine me, Spirit divine!

                                                Voices United 371

 I'm slow off the blog writing mark today because I've been...outside!...in the sunshine! 

We've experienced days on end of dreary, uncharacteristically foggy weather to the degree that if felt as though there must be a catch to a blue sky. 

I headed to a conservation area early on, one of the unassuming jewels of the Quinte Conservation Authority. I was alone when I started out, although there were a number of vehicles in the parking area when I returned. 

It seemed as though each sensory step was cause for gratitude. The morning light through the trees was a sort of Cedar-henge.I looked into the woodshed at the sap house for the umpteenth time and noticed a bird's nest for the first.  

I edged my way along the river where the overnight cold and slight waves had created scallops of ice along the shore. There was a cacophony of sound from the Canada Geese, not normally my idea of birdsong, but welcome on the first day of the Year of our Lord, 2024. 

I did pause along the way to give thanks to the Creator, for the simple pleasures to which my senses were attuned and the tranquility to receive them.

In this New Year I want to pay attention with all my Groundling senses to what Creation has to offer. This poem captures the holiness of doing so, as do the first two verses of  the 19th century hymn which welled up in response to my morning ramble. 

An Excerpt from Half Wild: Poems by Mary Rose O'Reilley

This collection of poems by Mary Rose O'Reilley won the 2005 Walt Whitman Award of the Academy of American Poets. Here is a poem about the benefits that can accrue from the spiritual practice of attention.

Icon

"The deer have 

hollowed 

spaces 

in the snow

they keep watch 

under my window

I lie 

in their 

belly-shaped bowls

see 

with their eyes, 

as monks 

learn to look 

with an icon's gaze 

at the monk 

regarding the icon

see myself 

out of a deer's stare 

merely a blameless 

grazer

veiled