I will not die an unlived life
I will not live in fear
of falling or catching fire.
I choose to inhabit my days,
to allow my living to open me,
to make me less afraid,
more accessible,
to loosen my heart
until it becomes a wing,
a torch, a promise.
I choose to risk my significance.
to live so that which came to me as seed
goes to the next as blossom
and that which came to me as blossom,
goes on as fruit.
by Dawna Markova
Happy New Year dear readers! This poem by Dawna Markova encapsulates elegantly what I feel a wholesome new year aspiration is for me. It has all the important components – the wish to open in spite of it all, the power to consciously choose, the resolve to not be stopped by fear, the power of the ‘will not’ and the tenacious commitment to living fully, the wish to be present in my days moment to moment, to ‘risk our significance’, the heart’s bid for freedom and finally the wish for who I am and who I am becoming, to be of benefit to others.
Having not yet done my annual new year’s vision board, I don’t know what the particular flavour of my new year’s contemplations will be this year, but I feel the promise! I can feel a quickening of creative life force in my body – is it ready to take wing, or become a torch? Or maybe – and this feels right as I write – it’s ready to put down roots.
Often at new year we focus on a concrete resolution that can feel like a should or a pressure that sets you up for ‘failure’. What if your new year’s aspiration was a feeling or an impulse or energy stirring within you? What feel does it have? Where does it want to flow or grow or settle down to? Does it have a colour or a metaphor to help you know its wisdom? And after bringing your curiosity to it, can it become a message of aspiration in words?
New years resolutions are often made from the rational thinking mind that has a story about how in this or that way we aren’t doing well enough and this year will be the year where we push ourselves hard enough to finally get beyond it and be better. No wonder they don’t last long! Let this year’s new year’s resolution come from the inside out, like a fountain, or a flower fragrance or a golden egg cracking to reveal new life.
More beautiful metaphors from Dawna Markova:
May you let loving unfurl you
then give you away.
May you remember
you are nest,
harbor,
garden.
All the best for 2026!
Ps. If you’d like to enter into this year with the intention to live your own precious life more fully in it’s uniqueness in this moment and the next, in the ups and downs and joys and sorrows, and alongside fellow practitioners of mindfulness, please join our Wonder of the Everyday course which starts on 14th January.
Photo by Jared Erondu on Unsplash
