The old year ends, a new year begins. One door closes, another opens.

“Abre la Puerta,” proclaims Clarissa Pinkola Estés, “Open the door.”

The poem of new life that comes every dawn,
the soaring of the sun, that is a door.
The grave is a door.
The door to hell is a door.
Abre la Puerta, open the door.

I’m meditating on “The New Year,” a poem by my friend, Patricia Greer, from her book, Whispers of the Soul. Yes, I have my “lists and intentions and goals” for the new year. But I also ponder with her: “Might we think about doing less?”

The last year was big “doing” for me. This year will be more “hibernation,” as Patricia calls it, “to withdraw and luxuriate in inner spaciousness” in order to hear “the still small voice that calls, in the whispers of the soul.” And to write! Here’s Patricia’s poem:

It’s early in the new year,
usually a time of shoulds
doing more,
and better,
lists and intentions and goals.
All good,
probably.

But I wonder,
might we think about
doing less?
Might we take time,
at least a little,
to sit,
and do what looks like nothing?
Might we enjoy
the gifts of the season:
darkness and silence?

I am sometimes awake before dawn,
before the early slant of light
appears in the winter sky.
It is time
slowed
for a while.

Perhaps we are meant to hibernate
just a little,
to withdraw
and luxuriate in inner spaciousness.
Perhaps then
in that interior darkness
and silence,
we might hear the still small voice
that calls,
in the whispers of the soul.

You may also want to look at my “Calendar Blessing” for welcoming the New Year. Each January 1, I love to “sanctify” the coming 365 days. And this is a leap year, so we get 366 days!

May God bless our “ordered lists of days, weeks, and months, of holy days, fasts and feasts. May they remind us that all days are for celebration and contemplation, for giving and receiving love.”