Preparing to meet 2025

With compassion and courage

Art by Erika Mazza-Smith

I’ve been taking a few days over the holidays to do some inner work, to prepare my mind for what is coming this year. I think it’s very important to take care of our minds, so connected as they are with the health of the entire body. With so much in the world that is troubling and hurtful, we need to find those inner places of assurance, solidity, and knowing who we are. It is not a diversion from the important work to be done in the world, but a basis for doing it.

Here is what I know. That no matter what happens, to seek to live to the greatest degree in a spirit of kindness and compassion. To put ourselves in the place of others as much as we can. To understand that, unlike those who consider these qualities of weakness, it takes a certain strength to see beyond yourself. And this is the key to solving so many of the problems besetting our world. Maybe all of them.

I also know many of us are dreading what is to come, with many good reasons for feeling that way. It is easy to become discouraged. But consider the root of that word. To face what we must, we must become couraged. People throughout history have faced many difficult circumstances. There are not always Hollywood happy endings. There are many situations over which we have no control. Being real about that, let us confront the coming year with boldness and courage.

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about the contradictions in which our world makes us live. I’ll be writing about that, and how I work my way to reconcile my own. I’ve also been thinking about how to coalesce a new political movement that can really move forward an agenda for justice and for nature. How to build in our own communities and link across the landscape. I’ve been writing a lot about that, and will be doing more. In the next year I hope to be talking with people who are doing great work to make a better world, and bring them to you.

As always, I am thankful for you, my readers, and for how many of you are working in that same direction. I only hope that what I offer can add to what you do. Now, onto 2025!