A POST-HOLIDAY STRESS CURE: POETRY, IMAGINATION, AND HOPE 

First, a poem written in 1513 that still inspires!

I salute you.  I am your friend, and my love for you goes deep.  There is nothing I can give you which you have not.  But there is much, very much, that, while I cannot give it, you can take.  No heaven can come to us unless our hearts find rest in it today.  Take heaven! No peace lies in the future which is not hidden in this present little instant. Take peace! The gloom of the world is but a shadow.  Behind it, yet within our reach, is joy. There is radiance and glory in darkness, could we but see.  And to see, we have only to look.  I beseech you to look!

Life is so generous a giver.  But we, judging its gifts by their covering, cast them away as ugly or heavy or hard.  Remove the covering, and you will find beneath it a living splendor, woven of love by wisdom, with power. Welcome it, grasp it, and you touch the angel’s hand that brings it to you. Everything we call a trial, a sorrow or a duty, believe me, that angel’s hand is there. The gift is there and the wonder of an overshadowing presence.  Your joys, too, be not content with them as joys.  They, too, conceal diviner gifts.

Life is so full of meaning and purpose, so full of beauty beneath its covering, that you will find earth but cloaks your heaven.  Courage then to claim it; that is all! But courage you have, and the knowledge that we are pilgrims together, wending through unknown country home.

And so, at this time, I greet you, not quite as the world sends greetings,
but with profound esteem and with the prayer that for you, now and
forever, the day breaks and shadows flee away.

~ Fra Giovanni ~

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Now invite John Lennon into your Monday morning! With all the busyness of this holiday season, let’s all take time to be still and to imagine our highest hopes for 2011. The best cure for a post-holiday, too-much-of-everything  “hangover” is making time for inspiration that makes the heart sing.

2011 is just a few days away. As you move closer to the fresh canvas of a new year, what can you imagine for yourself, your loved ones, the world? As you let in the music and lyrics of this timelessly universal  song, open your heart. What will you paint on the canvas of 2011? You may wish to make notes of what arises as you watch this video.

Please share your hopes and dreams for 2011 by commenting below.