A Gift

The year's end is often a time of reflection coinciding with the gift of a new year-- full of possibility. So, it is a time of both looking back and looking forward. I came by this poem, looking back through my journal. It is in someways a reflection on the circle conversation that many of us have been involved in over the years. It seemed like the right time to share it with you.

A gift

 We have changed

Each other—

Invited each of us

More fully present,

More completely human,

More alive—

Opened new worlds

Outside, within—

And filled each

To some brim,

Some new capacity,

We’d not have known

Was there.

We are surprised

By life

That we have found

Together—

Courage and pain

Lived in each other’s

Presence. 

Webs of heart

Muscle we’ve woven

From our lives

Alike and different.

So we become

A gift

To one another,

And ourselves.

         Judy Brown