John O'Donohue: For a New Beginning

This beautiful poem by John O'Donohue comes to me to share as I reflect back on this day over 30 years ago. Scared to death, broken hearted, alone, and exhausted, it was 33 years ago today that I walked into my first AA meeting and began my journey into sobriety and awakening. I had hit a fork in the road and choose the path that took me into uncharted territory and a new beginning I couldn't imagine. I had no idea at that time what I was getting myself into or how difficult the journey would be. Nor did I know how much more difficult and painful it would be to stay asleep. Yet, Grace offered me this new beginning and I accepted. I am overwhelmed with gratitude.... 

Each and every one of us have these experiences throughout our lives which offer us some form of a new beginning and the invitation to peel off yet another layer of our not knowing, our illusions, our unconsciousness and disconnections. We are given the opportunity to go deeper, to grow more into our greater wholeness and wisdom, to root into a life of increased meaning and purpose and contribution to some higher good, to expand our capacity for courage and compassion and kindness and love. These invitations may show up in a variety of forms - substance and non-substance addictions, the loss or death of a loved one, fears that continue to plague us, a new partner or a new baby, a sense of isolation or separateness, the injustices and violence which plague our nation and world, etc., etc. - and each of these experiences also try to bring with them the awareness that there is more, there is more to open to, more to learn, more to grow into. May we each again and again choose the path which brings us ever closer to the experience of the sacred being we have always been... and that we all are.

In deep gratitude and with warmest blessings - Molly 

For a New Beginning

In out of the way places of the heart
Where your thoughts never think to wander
This beginning has been quietly forming
Waiting until you were ready to emerge.

For a long time it has watched your desire
Feeling the emptiness grow inside you
Noticing how you willed yourself on
Still unable to leave what you had outgrown.

It watched you play with the seduction of safety
And the grey promises that sameness whispered
Heard the waves of turmoil rise and relent
Wondered would you always live like this.

Then the delight, when your courage kindled,
And out you stepped onto new ground,
Your eyes young again with energy and dream
A path of plenitude opening before you.

Though your destination is not clear
You can trust the promise of this opening;
Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning
That is one with your life’s desire.

Awaken your spirit to adventure
Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk
Soon you will be home in a new rhythm
For your soul senses the world that awaits you.

- John O'Donohue 

From To Bless the Space Between Us:

A Book of Blessings