Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

... Alfred Lord Tennyson (1850)

The Eighth Day

I enter my darkening house with
aching feet and a bulging bag
of groceries which I place on a table
before a window overlooking the Sound
and mountains beyond.
Shoes kicked off, coat on a chair,
my eye is caught by the death throes
of a housefly in the corner of the window,
then rises to see a brilliant orange line,
like neon, emerging from
where the Earth drops off.

The fly is soon quiet, its struggle over
and I am part of a vast silence as,
slowly, before me appears
October's moon at the full
like a ripe, shimmering fruit,
pregnant with the seeds of those twins
Beauty and Mystery.

Still as a stone, my breath deep,
I stand as witness to this spectacle
which fills my room with cool fire
as she moves diagonally
across my window,
getting entangled in the branches
of a fir, but not for long.
As I move toward bed, she continues
her journey through the night,
in one window, out the next,
until her brilliance pales
and she vanishes at sunrise.

Unless---she stays a while,
this 'lesser light,' to remind us
that she will return
and that she will be splendid.
Surely, there must have been
an eighth day
for the creation of such
a wanton jewel.

… by Barbara Wolf (2008)

... research ...

If we knew what we were doing
it wouldn't be called research.

.. by Albert Einsten

... letting go

We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned,
so as to accept the life that is waiting for us.
-- Joseph Campbell

When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.
-- Lao Tzu

Getting over a painful experience is much like crossing monkey bars. You have to let go at some point in order to move forward.
-- Author Unknown

Owe

Owe no one anything except to love one another for he who loves another has fulfilled the law.

- Romans 13:8
-- (NKJV)

I am one

I am one. I cannot do everything,
---but I can do something.
And because I cannot do everything,
I will not refuse to do the something that I can do.
What I can do, I should do.
And what I should do,
by the grace of God,
I will do.'

-- Edward Everett Hale