Start Again


Don’t you love it when something you’re not even expecting arrives just in time?

That was my experience earlier this week when a poem showed up in my inbox. As soon as I read it, I took in a deep relaxing breath and miraculously what had been a sense of “what’s going on here” shifted to “all is well”.

The poem was Leonard Cohen’s “Anthem Lyrics”. It began with…

The birds they sang
At the break of day
Start again
I heard them say
Don’t dwell on what
Has passed away
Or what is yet to be.

Start again. Oh, how I love those words.

Don’t dwell on what has passed away. This poem and the deep breath that arose brought me into the relief the present moment.

I read on and got to this stanza…

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.

Yes, there is a crack in everything, so true. There are cracks in our lives and there are cracks within us and often we just want them to go away. But it’s our job to acknowledge, accept and even embrace those imperfections because that’s how the light gets in.

Some of my greatest learning has come in the moments when I’ve thought there was no way out of a bad situation and then miraculously something shifts.

I’m writing in my journal and a new way of thinking appears on the page, I’m telling a story to someone I trust and my load lightens, I’m out for a walk and when I look up I find something beautiful or I’m in the middle of a ceremony I’ve created for myself and I feel my heart open.

In those moments light enters in the form of a deep well of self- love. There’s nothing quite like it.

After reading the poem earlier this week, I got up from my desk, walked over to my altar, picked up my Balinese bell and I “rang the bell that still can ring”. I lingered in its resonance and I was able to start again.

Tell me, what has come to you just in time? I wonder what’s on its way right now?

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