NEW YEAR'S Meditations & Reflections :New Year: A Dialogue by Ella Wheeler Wilcox*Old and New Year Ditties by Christina Rossetti

Music:
CHRIS SPHEERIS & ANTHONY MAZZELLA-Always

Gustave Leonard de Jonghe Art

New Year: A Dialogue
Ella Wheeler Wilcox

MORTAL:
“The night is cold, the hour is late,
the world is bleak and drear;
Who is it knocking at my door?”

THE NEW YEAR:
“I am Good Cheer.”

MORTAL:
“Your voice is strange; I know you not;
in shadows dark I grope.
What seek you here?”

THE NEW YEAR:
“Friend, let me in; my name is Hope.”

MORTAL:
“And mine is Failure;
you but mock the life you seek to bless.
Pass on.”

THE NEW YEAR:
“Nay, open wide the door; I am Success.”

MORTAL:
“But I am ill and spent with pain;
too late has come your wealth.
I cannot use it.”

THE NEW YEAR:
“Listen, friend; I am Good Health.”

MORTAL:
“Now, wide I fling my door.
Come in, and your fair statements prove.”

THE NEW YEAR:
“But you must open, too, your heart, for I am Love.”

Farnand Toussaint Art

Old and New Year Ditties
Christina Rossetti

New Year met me somewhat sad:
Old Year leaves me tired,
Stripped of favourite things I had
Baulked of much desired:
Yet farther on my road to-day
God willing, farther on my way.

New Year coming on apace
What have you to give me?
Bring you scathe, or bring you grace,
Face me with an honest face;
You shall not deceive me:
Be it good or ill, be it what you will,
It needs shall help me on my road,
My rugged way to heaven, please God.

Watch with me, men, women, and children dear,
You whom I love, for whom I hope and fear,
Watch with me this last vigil of the year.
Some hug their business, some their pleasure-scheme;
Some seize the vacant hour to sleep or dream;
Heart locked in heart some kneel and watch apart.

Watch with me blessèd spirits, who delight
All through the holy night to walk in white,
Or take your ease after the long-drawn fight.
I know not if they watch with me: I know
They count this eve of resurrection slow,
And cry, “How long?” with urgent utterance strong.

Watch with me Jesus, in my loneliness:
Though others say me nay, yet say Thou yes;
Though others pass me by, stop Thou to bless.
Yea, Thou dost stop with me this vigil night;
To-night of pain, to-morrow of delight:
I, Love, am Thine; Thou, Lord my God, art mine.

Passing away, saith the World, passing away:
Chances, beauty and youth sapped day by day:
Thy life never continueth in one stay.
Is the eye waxen dim, is the dark hair changing to grey
That hath won neither laurel nor bay?
I shall clothe myself in Spring and bud in May:
Thou, root-stricken, shalt not rebuild thy decay
On my bosom for aye.
Then I answered: Yea.

Passing away, saith my Soul, passing away:
With its burden of fear and hope, of labour and play;
Hearken what the past doth witness and say:
Rust in thy gold, a moth is in thine array,
A canker is in thy bud, thy leaf must decay.
At midnight, at cockcrow, at morning, one certain day
Lo, the Bridegroom shall come and shall not delay:
Watch thou and pray.
Then I answered: Yea.

Passing away, saith my God, passing away:
Winter passeth after the long delay:
New grapes on the vine, new figs on the tender spray,
Turtle calleth turtle in Heaven’s May.
Though I tarry wait for Me, trust Me, watch and pray:
Arise, come away, night is past and lo it is day,
My love, My sister, My spouse, thou shalt hear Me say.
Then I answered: Yea.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.
Alfred Tennyson

Then sing, young hearts that are full of cheer,
With never a thought of sorrow;
The old goes out, but the glad young year
Comes merrily in tomorrow.
Emily Miller

Reflections on New Year’s Eve by Hillary DePiano

Life goes by so very fast, my dears, and taking the time to reflect,
even once a year, slows things down. We zoom past so many seconds,
minutes, hours, killing them with the frantic way we live that it’s
important we take at least this one collective sigh and stop, take
stock, and acknowledge our place in time before
diving back into the melee.

Midnight on New Year’s Eve is a unique kind of magic where, just
for a moment, the past and the future exist at once in the present.
Whether we’re aware of it or not, as we countdown together to it,
we’re sharing the burden of our history
and committing to the promise of tomorrow.
Hillary DePiano

Happy New Year

Make use of time by William Shakespeare

Make use of time, let not advantage slip;
Beauty within itself should not be wasted:
Fair flowers that are not gather'd in their prime
Rot and consume themselves in little time.
William Shakespeare

Happy New Year

The New Year by Omar Khayyam

Now the New Year reviving old desires,
the thoughtful soul to solitude retires.
Omar Khayyam

Happy New Year

New Year's Day by Sarah Ban Breathnach

New Year's Day. A fresh start.
A new chapter in life waiting to be written.
New questions to be asked, embraced, and loved.
Answers to be discovered and then lived in this
transformative year of delight and self-discovery.
Today carve out a quiet interlude for yourself in
which to dream, pen in hand. Only dreams give birth to change.
Sarah Ban Breathnach

Happy New Year

On The speech of Jesus/ On the kingdoms of the world by Khalil Gibran

Music:
vassilis saleas

The orator of tyre On the speech of Jesus
Khalil Gibran
Excerpt,Jesus:The son of man

What shall I say of His speech?
Perhaps something about His person lent power to
His words and swayed those who heard Him.
For He was comely, the sheen of the day was upon His countenance.

Men and women gazed at Him more than they listened to His argument.
But at times He spoke with the power of a spirit,and
that spirit had authority over those who heard Him.

In my youth I had heard the orators of Rome and Athens and Alexandria.
The young Nazarene was unlike them all.They assembled their words
with an art to enthral the ear, but when you heard Him your heart
would leave you and go wandering into regions not yet visited.

He would tell a story or relate a parable, and the like of His stories
and parables had never been heard in Syria. He seemed to spin them out
of the seasons, even as time spins the years and the generations.

He would begin a story thus:
“The ploughman went forth to the field to sow his seeds.
”Or, “Once there was a rich man who had many vineyards.”
Or, “A shepherd counted his sheep at eventide and found
that one sheep was missing.”

And such words would carry His listeners into their
simpler selves,and into the ancient of their days.
At heart we are all ploughmen,and we all love the vineyard.
And in the pastures of our memory there is a shepherd and
a flock and the lost sheep.

And there is the plough-share and the winepress and the threshing-floor.
He knew the source of our older self, and the persistent thread of
which we are woven.

The Greek and the Roman orators spoke to their listeners
of life as it seemed to the mind.
The Nazarene spoke of a longing that lodged in the heart.

They saw life with eyes only a little clearer than yours and mine.
He saw life in the light of God.

I often think that He spoke to the crowd
as a mountain would speak to the plain.
And in His speech there was a power that was not
commanded by the orators of Athens or of Rome.

On the kingdoms of the world
Khalil Gibran
Excerpt,Jesus:The son of man

And His face shone like molten gold, and He outsretched
His arms and He said to us,

"Behold the earth in her green raiment,and see how the streams
have hemmed the edges of her garments with silver.
"In truth the earth is fair and all that is upon her is fair.
"But there is a kingdom beyond all that you behold, and therein
I shall rule.

"My face and your faces shall not be masked;
our hand shall hold neither sword nor sceptre,
and our subjects shall love us in peace and shall
not be in fear of us."

"My throne is a throne beyond your vision.
Shall he whose wings encircle the earth seek shelter
in a nest abandoned and forgotten?

"My kingdom is not of this earth, and my seat is not
builded upon the skulls of your ancestors.

"If you seek naught save the kingdom of the spirit then it were
better for you to leave me here...

"Dare you tempt me with a crown of dross, when my forehead seeks
the Pleiades, or else your thorns?

"Were it not for a dream dreamed by a forgotten race I would not
suffer your sun to rise upon my patience, nor your moon to throw
my shadow across your path.

"Were it not for a mother's desire I would have stripped me of
the swaddling-clothes and escaped back to space.
"And were it not for sorrow in all of you I would not have stayed to weep.

"Let ignorance reproduce itself until
it is weary of its own offspring.

"Let the blind lead the blind to the pitfall.

"And let the dead bury the dead till the earth
be choked with its own bitter fruit.

"My kingdom is not of the earth.
My kingdom shall be where two or three of you
shall meet in love, and in wonder at the loveliness of life,
and in good cheer, and in remembrance of me."

Help The age of peace To come by MADELINE MORSE

let us find
Nourishment for heart and mind.
Let us follow kinder ways
Through our teeming human maze,
And help the age of peace to come.
MADELINE MORSE

MERRY CHRISTMAS - When Christmas comes to town

When Winter Comes - CHRIS DE BURGH

Season of love by Hamilton Wright Mabie

Blessed is the season which engages
the whole world in a conspiracy of love.
Hamilton Wright Mabie

No soul is desolate by GEORGE ELIOT

No soul is desolate as long as there is a human being
for whom it can feel trust and reverence.
GEORGE ELIOT

Though I be shut in darkness by Thomas Bailey Aldrich

Though I be shut in darkness, and become insentient dust blown
idly here and there, I count oblivion a scant price to pay for
having once had held against my lip life's brimming cup of
hydromel and rue--for having once known woman's holy love and
a child's kiss, and for a little space been boon companion
to the Day and Night, Fed on the odors of the summer dawn,
and folded in the beauty of the stars. Dear Lord, though
I be changed to senseless clay, and serve the potter as
he turns his wheel, I thank Thee for the gracious gift of tears!
Thomas Bailey Aldrich

Romance by Alfred Noyes

Outlawed, but not alone, for Love
Is outlawed, too.
You cannot banish us, proud world:
We banish you.
Alfred Noyes

What we need is here by Wendell Berry.From "The Wild Geese"

Geese appear high over us,
pass, and the sky closes. Abandon,
as in love or sleep, holds
them to their way, clear,
in the ancient faith: what we need
is here. And we pray, not
for new earth or heaven, but to be
quiet in heart, and in eye
clear. What we need is here.
Wendell Berry

Forgive me, Spirit of my spirit by George William Russell

Forgive me, Spirit of my spirit, for this, that I have
found it easier to read the mystery told in tears and
understood Thee better in sorrow than in joy.
George William Russell

Make your heart like a lake by Lao Tzu

Make your heart like a lake with
a calm, still surface and great
depths of kindness.
Lao Tzu

Rules For Love & Spirituality: Inspirational quotes by Shams Tabrizi

Music:
Cafe Anatolia - Fikrimin İnce Gülü

Rules For Love & Spirituality
Shams Tabrizi

A life without love
is a waste.
"Should I look for
spiritual love, or material, or physical love?"

Don't ask yourself this question.
Discrimination leads to discrimination.

Love doesn't need any name,
category or definition.
Love is a world itself.
Either you are in, at the center,
either you are out,
yearning.

All travelers whether they want or not are changed.
No one can travel into love and remain the same.

The quest for Love changes us.
There is no seeker among those who search for Love
who has not matured on the way. The moment you start
looking for Love, you start to change within and without.

The chemistry of mind is different from the chemistry of love.
The mind is careful, suspicious, he advances little by little.
He advises “Be careful, protect yourself”
Whereas love says“Let yourself, go!”

The mind is strong, never falls down,
while love hurts itself, falls into ruins.
But isn’t it in ruins that we mostly find the treasures?
A broken heart hides so many treasures.

The past is an interpretation. The future is an illusion.
The world does not move more through time as if it were a straight
line, proceeding from the past to the future.
Instead time moves through and within us, in endless spirals.

Eternity does not mean infinite time, but simply timelessness.
If you want to experience eternal illumination, put the past
and the future out of your mind and remain within the present moment.

The universe is a complete unique entity.
Everything and everyone is bound
together with some invisible strings.
Do not break anyone’s heart;
do not look down on weaker than you.
One’s sorrow at the other side of the world
can make the entire world suffer;
one’s happiness can make the entire world smile.

The whole universe is sum up in the Human Being.
Devil is not a monster waiting to trap us,
He is a voice inside.

Look for Your Devil in Yourself, not in the Others.
Don't forget that the one who knows his Devil, knows his God.

If the human being is a proud and honorable creature,
he shouldn't forget to act that way, even if he falls,
even if the whole world is against him, even if he ends as a slave.

The words we use for the Creator are a reflect of ourselves.
If we think of God as fear and shame,
we are scared and have something to be ashamed of.
But if we see love, compassion and kindness,
it is because we possess these qualities.

Don’t search for heaven and hell in the future.
Both are now present.
Whenever we manage to love without expectations,
calculations,negotiations,we are indeed in heaven.
Whenever we fight, hate, we are in hell.

The life we live is just a colourful and deposit toy.
Some of us take it so seriously and fight and cry for it.
Some of us break and throw it.
Either we give extreme importance, either not enough.
Better to stay far from extremes.

No matter what people call you, you are just who you are.
Keep to this truth. You must ask yourself how is it you
want to live your life. We live and we die, this is the truth
that we can only face alone. No one can help us.
So consider carefully, what prevents you from living the way
you want to live your life?

It is never late to ask yourself
“Am I ready to change my life,
am I ready to change myself?”.
However old we are, whatever we
went through, it is always possible to reborn.

If each day is a copy of the last one, what a pity!
Every breath is a chance to reborn.
But to reborn into a new life, you have to die before dying.

We can only learn and advance with contradictions.
The faithful inside should meet the doubtful.
The doubtful should meet the faithful.
Human slowly advances and becomes mature when
he accepts his contradictions.

There may be one fault in a man that conceals
a thousand qualities,or one excellence that
conceals a thousand faults.
The little indicates much.

Patience is not sitting and waiting, it is foreseeing.
It is looking at the thorn and seeing rose,
looking at the night and seeing the dawn.

The lovers never run out of patience,
for they know that time is needed for
the crescent moon to become full.

There are more fake guides, teachers in the world than stars.
The real guide is the one who makes you see your inner beauty,
not the one who wants to be admired and followed.

Remove all the walls and curtains
so you can get closer and purely love.

Have principles but do not use them
to exclude or to judge the others.

Stay far from idols, specially from
those you made from your own principles.
Have a powerful faith, but do not play the powerful.