I have a daily meditation book called The Celtic Spirit. Its pages are filled with beautiful, wise and often playful words encouraging the reader to stay in tune with the daily transitions of the year and how, if we awake, we find the Sacred in the midst of the ordinary. It is a book I return to over and over again.
Today's reading had to do with our heart's desire. I believe it was written to coincide with the coming New Year and the traditional practice of making resolutions. These things to be 'taken on' or others to be 'let go of' frame how we enter the next year we will travel round the sun. I've never been much of a resolution maker having learned early in life that it can often be a deep, dark pit of disappointment. But that doesn't keep me from thinking about this transition of year's end and noting the possibility that new things can happen that will be for the good. By this, I mean, that small intentions I can make as I enter 2010 will have the potential to move my life in a way that will more fully realize who I was born to be. And, after all, isn't that the point of our living?
The writer of this daily meditation book, Caitlin Matthews, makes a clear distinction between our wishes and our heart's desire. I can wish for all manner of things….a new car, a slimmer waistline, that lovely sea foam green angora sweater I saw in the store window…..but these things are fleeting in their ability to bring happiness. But my heart's desire is the connection with that deep seed of hope that was born with me, that seed which I nurture or neglect. Coming to know my heart's desire means focusing inward for what will fulfill and bring my given potential to the world. This becomes not only the fulfillments of my heart's longing but also, I believe, the longing of the One who breathed me into being. This work is much more difficult and requires more commitment on my part than the wishes I harbor. It also allows me to connect with the Holy that rests in the heart of that deep seed. Matthews writes: "If we can commune deeply upon our heart's desire, rather than upon our fantasies, if we can envision it with every cell of our body and call to it, then we send a true song to make the pathway between ourselves and our heart's desire."
What is your heart's desire? What is the seed that lies deep within that is calling you to sing your true song? How will the pathway between your self and your heart's desire be paved this coming year? These cold winter days can provide the perfect environment for looking within to re-member our deepest self and set our intention for how we may live into the new year with clarity and vision. There are a few days left in 2009, good days to contemplate our heart's desire.