A New Year Begins

A Happy New Year to you if you are reading this, and to everyone who has read my blog over the last year.

I find that the trouble with New Year's Day is that it follows New Year's Eve and subsequently, a late night, which makes it so much more likely that we will break our New Year's resolutions on the very first day of the year.

So, I am sitting here with a cup of rooibos chai, trying to stay awake long enough to write my first blog post of the year, as we stayed up until half past one this morning watching 'It's a Wonderful Life' on DVD. It's the first time I've ever seen the film and we all enjoyed it, hubby, daughter and me. As daughter had to work New Year's Eve she wasn't able to join her friends in Plymouth, so came out to dinner with us and then joined us for the evening playing charades and watching the aforementioned DVD.   We had a very pleasant New Year's Eve and toasted 2012 with the last of the bottles of bubbly we were given for our Silver Wedding a couple of years ago.

A wet start to the year

Today I ate an apple and a clementine for breakfast, as well as my cereal, did not eat between meals and managed to go for a walk in Winkworth Arboretum even though it had started raining by the time I was ready. So I can feel I have done something to make this a healthy year and to start to get fitter for 2012, although I have no Olympic ambitions, let me hasten to add.

After the walk we had a lunch mostly of Christmas leftovers but with a little smoked wild Alaskan salmon to mark the first day of this new year. Then we played scrabble after which, as we had started the day so late, it was time to start cooking the beef for our roast beef dinner with all the trimmings.  That was followed by the last of the Christmas pudding.

So, this year I am going to be healthier and fitter than last year.  I shall take more exercise and spend more time in the garden so that we manage to grow more of our own fruit and veg, and generally save the planet.  I could go on with the list of all I hope to achieve.  I would need to be Superwoman to have any chance of achieving it, and I am definitely not her.  What about you, what do you aspire to achieve this year?

Experience has taught me that life has a habit of showing just how human we are, but these days I don't tend to see that as a reason for guilt or despair. Being human means that we cannot be perfect.  We all have to settle for our best in any given moment. As Don Miguel Ruiz says,

 "Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick. Under any circumstance, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgement, self-abuse, and regret."

 If you do not achieve all that you hoped to achieve today you may need to modify your plans for tomorrow.  Another trait common to most people is to be over-ambitious and unrealistic about what we can achieve in the time available. Of course it's not a good idea to give up to easily, but we need to be realistic about what we are capable of so that we know when to try harder and when to realise we have done our best and need to readjust our expectations.

So let us not be discouraged this year when things don't go entirely according to plan or that we couldn't manage all that we wanted to do.  We may need to review our plans from time to time, make a reality check or work out strategies to help us do better.  Most of all we mustn't give up because of set backs along the way.  They are to be expected and will help us develop character and experience.

At this time of year we are subject to the effects of darkness on our bodies to which our ancestors responded by slowing down and only hunting or working during the daylight hours.  Now is not a good time to expect too much of ourselves, but rather a time to respect the natural rhythms of life remembering,  as this New Year begins, the seeds of hope and potential which lie dormant in the Winter darkness, waiting to come to life in the Spring.

As the petals of 2012 unfold may a happy, healthy and fulfilling year blossom for you.

As for me, right now, I'm off to bed to catch up with my beauty sleep. After all a good night's sleep helps us all to be healthier and to have more energy.

(Jewish) New Year, New Start

Happy New Year to you, if you are Jewish.  If you are not Jewish, then you might like to know that today is the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah.

I found that out when listening to Good Morning Sunday at the weekend.  One of the guests was Rabbi Pete Tobias, who explained that originally the new year was the time when the Jewish community apologised to God, as he put it, so he wouldn't be angry with them, because they wanted him to bless their harvest and the new crops they were sowing and planting for the year ahead.

Traditionally the word the Bible uses rather than apologise, is repent, which I've been told means to change direction.

It seems to me that now would be a good time for all of us, whether Jew, Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, Christian, Atheist or whatever to repent of all the things we're doing to upset the balance of our beautiful, life-sustaining planet and change direction to a new way of doing things that means we tread much more lightly on the Earth and do what we can to avoid harming others.

Something I read this morning could help us to change the way we think about the food we eat:

'We have to look deeply to see how we grow our food, so we can eat in ways that preserve our collective well-being, minimize our suffering and the suffering of other species, and allow the earth to continue to be a source of life for all of us.  If, while we eat, we destroy living beings or the environment, we are eating the flesh of our own sons and daughters*.  We need to look deeply together and discuss how to eat, what to eat and what to resist."

* This is a reference to an allegorical story the Buddha is said to have told, known as 'Discourse on the Son's Flesh'. The meaning is that we are thoughtlessly consuming our children's future, or at least the resources they will need to live well, and maybe to live at all.

From 'The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching' by Thich Nhat Hanh.