A joyful 2008 to you dear visitor!

My heart is full on this first day of this precious new year. In my own life, there have been so many amazingly beautiful experiences this year, and so many expected challenges as well! In the first category, my new marriage just a few months ago–one among many great gifts this year. In the second category, strong financial challenges and an unfathomable disturbance of a very important relationship with someone dear. Rumi says love all of it–each thread of the tapestry of this precious life. I do! I “pray for tough instructors” and they come. I’ve learned that in my life, any day of the week may bring an unbelievable joy or a monumental and totally unexpected problem–or both!My life is so rich with love and marriage, friends, children, poetry, community, a small dog that sweetens my life, nature, and–not least–my work as a psychotherapist and writer. Everyday I think about how I can make more of a difference on this earth. It has been my fate to learn about the great pain so many human beings on our planet face at this moment and everyday. If you are on a battlefield, facing serious illness in yourself or a loved one, if you are mourning someone precious to you, if you are not free, if you are depressed, frightened, even suicidal, as we begin this new year, my heart goes out to you. Know that you are not–truly not–alone. “Lo, I am with you always….” is very real regardless of your spiritual path or lack of one. If that doesn’t make sense, meditate and pray for understanding. As Mary Oliver said, no matter who you are, no matter how lonely, you have a place in the family of things. Please visit www.maryoliver.net and colemanbarks.com for more on Mary Oliver’s poems, and on Coleman Barks, whose Rumi translations are used in this site and in The Rumi Secret. If you need words of encouragement right now, you can email me at vlee@aol.com any time. Another way to get instant relief from inner pain, is to do an act of service for someone–anyone. Speak kindly to the taxi driver or the grocery store clerk. Call someone who would love to hear your voice on the phone. Write a note of appreciation to someone. Forgive someone who doesn’t deserve it and let them know (just about the forgiveness part!) Go to the animal shelter and pet the lonely animals. Take a flower or some cookies to an elder in your neighborhood. Thank someone. Look in the mirror and allow yourself to see the beauty behind the eyes there. Rumi says “I am so small. How can this great love be inside me? Your eyes are small, yet they see enormous things.” I love you.