The Kaleidoscope Year
What Will Come Into Focus?
Beloveds,
First of all, it is the second day of a new year! Happy new year! Here is to a year that we make count in kindness, caring, and love for each other.
As the old year draws to a close and a new one begins, we often take time to reflect. Some of us think about the things that happened over the past year and some of us look forward to setting intentions for the new one. Whether you set resolutions or not, there is a sense of a new beginning. This is a season of hope and faith for newness.
It is interesting that in this cold bare winter season where most of what is happening is dormant or storing energy for the warmer seasons, we are anticipating something new. It is a season of hope and faith for newness in nature too.
As last year was winding down, I started thinking about how years seem to unfold. And I began to wonder if it was similar to how shapes come into focus when looking through a kaleidoscope. I’m pretty sure that you have at some point looked through one of these. The eyepiece is usually quite small and if you lift it up to your eye it is dark. However, when you put your eye to the small dark eyepiece and hold it to the light, you can see the shapes. In order to get the pieces inside to focus into a delightful design, it must first be shaken or the end has to be twisted around. It is only then, that everything falls into place. There are usually some shapes that don’t “hang” with the rest. They are the ones that haven’t come to us yet, waiting for “their time”. We can’t predict what the final design will be until all the pieces come together. And, isn’t that how most of our life is? We may think things will turn out a certain way and most of the time it is shaken up, out of focus, until all the events play out. Only then do we see the beautiful mosaic of life. During the time it takes for the design to become clear, we experience mystery. We pause in liminal space until more is further known or until all the pieces come together. What I like most about the kaleidoscope is that there is an opportunity to change the design. If we twist it just a bit the pieces move and there is the possibility for something different to occur. Isn’t that like our own lives, we have opportunities to shape our futures and our thoughts and feelings.
Maybe the image of a kaleidoscope and its workings will help to calm us in those periods of waiting for outcomes. Maybe it can help us to be curious and pause when things get shaken up or twisted around. I’m going to try to remember the wisdom that comes from the simple kaleidoscope. I’m going to hold everything to the light until the design appears whole.
Jace
Buddha with a Cell Phone
The dark sky opens and it starts to rain. I go outside
to stand in the stream, the longed-for gift of water
where it hasn’t rained for so long. I shout and dance
with the dog, who puts his ears back and licks my nose.
When we come back in, he shakes and I do too,
a few drops flying off my hair. I notice the Buddha
sitting on my desk. He’s a rubber Buddha
in a yellow robe. If you squeeze him he squeaks.
He’s got a radiant smile on his face, his eyebrows
happy half-moons over his eyes. As I stare at him
my wife walks by and with a cheery Buddha-like glint says,
“It’s raining.” In his right hand the Buddha’s got a cappuccino
and in his left a cell phone pressed to his ear.
His lips are closed so I know he’s listening, not talking.
One more thing—I pick up a little kaleidoscope
lying next to the Buddha and lift it to my eye to look outside.
I thought it would make the raindrops glitter
through the autumn-dry corn but instead what I see
looks like the ceiling of a great cathedral.
I whirl around and am presented with the image
of a thousand rubber Buddhas, each one
a drop of rain, falling, ready to hit the ground.
David Romtvedt
https://poets.org/poem/buddha-cell-phone
David Romtvedt, Some Church (Minneapolis: Milkweed Editions, 2005).
Thank you Jace. Happy New Year ❣️