Two New Year Blessings For Those Who Struggled Through 2023

Blessing No. 1

(By yours truly)

Centuries after the Italian painter Caravaggio finished one of his earliest masterpieces, The Cardships, infrared imaging revealed that he’d made several significant changes along the way.

Though the painting is large and dramatic, the naked eye can’t see that:

• The playing cards moved from their original placement.
• One of the figures’ hands shifted position.
• Stripes on a piece of clothing diverged from their initial trajectory.

In the art world, alterations such as these have a name: They’re called pentimenti.

Interestingly, “pentimenti” comes from the Latin word meaning “repent.” It refers to visible traces in an artwork that show where the artist changed their mind. 

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At the start of 2023, you may have been joyfully approaching the new year as if it were a blank canvas. But then something — whatever it may have been — grabbed ahold of your paintbrush and seemingly smeared over each of those initial strokes.

Unprecedented global temperatures and natural disasters: smear. Devastating and deadly wars: smudge. Ongoing physical and psychological aftereffects of the pandemic: stain.

Heartbreak, loss, addiction, mental illness…

From your perspective, the resulting painting may look less like a minor alteration from the original and more like death by a thousand strokes.

However, the concept of pentimenti shows us that — rather than shame, regret, or even starting anew — repentance simply means to go another way.  

These underlying layers are not futile, nor should they be classified as mistakes. Rather, they add to the impact of the painting’s final form. It’s a lifelong process of creation. 

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The New Year doesn’t magically grant you a new canvas, but it does provide a chance to reflect on the evolution of your life’s handiwork. A chance to admire all the times you’ve struggled to put paint to paper but did.

You not only survived the pain but you used it to create something of beauty. 

And here’s the thing: If the divine voice inside you is gently nudging you to go another way, you can.

May you marvel at how far you’ve come, delight in the dimension you added this year, and then dip your brush into a brand-new color.

Blessing No. 2

(By the late John O’Donahue, an Irish teacher and poet)

BEANNACHT

For Josie

On the day when
The weight deadens
On your shoulders
And you stumble,
May the clay dance
To balance you.

And when your eyes
Freeze behind
The grey window
And the ghost of loss
Gets in to you,
May a flock of colours,
Indigo, red, green,
And azure blue,
Come to awaken in you
A meadow of delight.

When the canvas frays
In the currach of thought
And a stain of ocean
Blackens beneath you,
May there come across the waters
A path of yellow moonlight
To bring you safely home.

May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
May the clarity of light be yours,
May the fluency of the ocean be yours,
May the protection of the ancestors be yours.

And so may a slow
Wind work these words
Of love around you,
An invisible cloak
To mind your life.

[Note: “Beannacht” is the Gaelic word for “blessing.” A “currach” is a large boat used on the west coast of Ireland.]