Another year begins, and we’re off to the races! I’m already trying to resist the tide of busyness, and the feeling of too-much-to-do. The challenge is to stay aware and awake to the present moment, to maintain focus on what really matters, and to stay alive to Life. My camera serves me well in this, as it helps me to observe my surroundings, to engage the world around me, to participate in “the grand array,” as the poet David Whyte calls it in the following poem.

Everything is Waiting for You by David Whyte

Your great mistake is to act the drama
as if you were alone. As if life
were a progressive and cunning crime
with no witness to the tiny hidden
transgressions. To feel abandoned is to deny
the intimacy of your surroundings.

Surely,
even you, at times, have felt the grand array;
the swelling presence, and the chorus, crowding
out your solo voice. You must note
the way the soap dish enables you,
or the window latch grants you freedom.

Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity.
The stairs are your mentor of things
to come, the doors have always been there
to frighten you and invite you,
and the tiny speaker in the phone
is your dream-ladder to divinity.

Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into the
conversation. The kettle is singing
even as it pours you a drink, the cooking pots
have left their arrogant aloofness and
seen the good in you at last.

All the birds
and creatures of the world are unutterably
themselves. Everything is waiting for you.

– Eyes wide open, Chinwe