In these first few weeks of the New Year the gyms are packed, runners are everywhere (even in the cold!) and to-do lists are mastered. Mentors help us make and keep our resolutions year round, and that is just one of the many reasons we are here to bring mentoring stories and events to you and your circle of friends and family.
Please enjoy these thoughts today, from Blü who urges us to welcome the new year. Jennifer “Blü” DESIGNED her words to be read along with the MUSIC of Helen Jane Long, specifically, the extended version of the song The Aviators. It’s a wonderful experience to listen and read, so let the sounds and words MENTOR you by listening and reading at the same time.
-Dawn Carroll, Over My Shoulder Foundation Co-Founder and Executive Director
The Music – by Blü
written to Helen Jane Long’s song The Aviators (extended version)
As the evening dissolves into the last of 2012, I am called to remember the past 365 days. I am beckoned like the moon to the night sky to count the stars of my successes and failures. These keys begin to fashion themselves into the chorus of my mind, reaching out to explain and examine my life, as if in accounting for the events which have brought me here I will discover their truth. However, before I can even begin to determine what truth is, I must first define where success and failure reside.
So what does it mean to be successful? Is it adorations? Is the complement of hands in a wave of symphonic applause? or is it the sunsets of days well lived? And what of failures? How are they defined? Are they the silent shadows cast after long expectations extinguish in the bright light of a new direction? Are they the will unmoved by the simplicities of knowing the path but not taking it? And who am I to define them? Is some measure of friendship or great work the definition I seek to be what I long to be? Is stepping out against the angst of my nature to leave at the curb the dust of my past the way to discover who I am?
I, honestly, cannot give you an answer which will suit you.
And as I write this, I can never be sure the answers to these questions. What I can say, is all of this is part of the journey to a life well lived. Successes and failures dance in a song of our own making. The music is our dreams and the dreams of others woven in a tapestry of searchings and longings played about on the stardust of our attempts. In this music, we are the instruments, the resounding – the re-sounding, of every moment of try. Every moment of doubt and every willingness to risk all lingers in the halls of our minds and into the universe of all we encounter. Will we hit all the notes in perfect pitch or is perfection the evidence of a life un-risked? Who am I to tell you what success and failures are? Who am I but a poet and a writer, a believer, a dreamer, a hoper, a stumbler, a fist-shaker? Who am I but who I choose every day to be? and just as a drop of rain cannot determine where it will land, only that it will quench whatever place it comes to rest… so can I never know how my life will mix in the great melody of our days.
But what I can say, and what I can know, is with every moment, every breath taken in, I have the choice to be what each day calls of me. I can step out against fear and doubt to risk making mistakes to make the world, my world… our world… a bit better. Sometimes the music played will be triumphant, other times quickened and outpaced by chords gone awry, and still others slow and steadily noted as it paces to a quiet end.
And now as I think of it, the only true failure would be to not play. To extinguish every action in the swell of no action, no words, no writing.
So these are my words to myself, and to you. We are but stars, noted out in the grand universe of our makings. And no matter what happens in the next 365 days, it is our choice to shine… or sing… or write… or play,… or dance… speak, create, love, gather, share, long suffer, trudge forward or to not. We are the music. Let us find the song and rejoice in all of its wondrous cords – successes and failures. Let us make the music to tell our stories and be who we are called to be. Let us put away doubt and fear. Let us embrace each other, lift up when one is down, reach out when needed, comfort when called, and dance in the storms. For in these things, we become the music.
We are… the music.
Welcome 2013 may your symphony be…. as it should.
If you liked this post you can find more from Blu on her blog or on Facebook.
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