“And waste my heart on fear no more.”

By Janet Conner | December 1, 2025

Week 48--in which we remember how our ancestors welcomed a new year

Beautiful Ones,

Here in America, the relentless drumbeat to buy, buy, buy is relentless, not just this week, but throughout the holiday season. And so, it seems to me, the wisest, smartest, holiest turn I can make right now is to hit the pause button on capitalism.

And in the silence, turn my attention to the coming dawn. Not just the dawn of another day, but the dawn of another year.

Before the Gregorian calendar—the product of the Catholic church—conditioned us to think of time as linear: days, weeks, months, we felt the turning of the wheel of time in our bodies. No one had to tell us it was time to go to sleep. Or wake. Or eat. No one had to announce that it was time to plant or harvest. We lived in rhythm with the sun and the moon and the seasons.

For our ancestors, the dawn of a new cycle of life began when the longest darkest night of the year yielded to the sun inching over the horizon. And with great joy and feasting and music and dancing, we welcomed the new year.

Today we pin that moment to a calendar labeled December 21. But not so very long ago, we didn’t have to be told the date to recognize when a new dawn was coming. We felt it.

So I went looking for a prayer-poem that sings the song of new dawn a new year, a new beginning.

And I found it. In a sweet sweet book, To Bless the Space Between Us, by John O’Donohue. As I read it, I realized it was speaking perfectly to this moment in our modern lives. And yet, somehow simultaneously recalling the essence of how our ancestors welcomed the return of the light.

As you read this, see if you too perceive it not just as a blessing of a new day but of an entire new year. In both cases, the closing line is the mantra we need to hold.

"A Morning Offering"
To Bless the Space Between Us

John O’Donohue

I bless the night that nourished my heart
To set the ghosts of longing free
Into the flow and figure of dream
That went to harvest from the dark
Bread for the hungers no one sees.

All that is eternal in me
Welcomes the wonder of this day,
The field of brightness it creates
Offering time for each thing
To arise and illuminate.

I place on the altar of dawn:
The quiet loyalty of breath,
The tent of thought where I shelter,
Waves of desire I am shore to
And all beauty drawn to the eye.

May my mind come alive today
To the invisible geography
That invites me to new frontiers,
To break the dead shell of yesterdays,
To risk being disturbed and changed.

May I have the courage today
To live the life that I would love,
To postpone my dream no longer
But to do at last what I came here for
And waste my heart on fear no more.

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That’s it really. Right there. In that last line, is the blessing we ask of ourselves while living in a world that relishes fear, feeds fear, ignites fear.