Not Mere Visitors

Embracing the New Year with Courage, Wonder, and Unity

As the new year approaches, I hold this vision close: to see all things as part of a vast brotherhood and sisterhood, to regard time as a fleeting idea, and to embrace eternity as an open possibility. Let us imagine each life as a flower—common as a field daisy, yet wholly unique—and each name as a melody, resonating softly, moving inevitably toward silence. Picture every body as a lion of courage, a precious treasure bound to the earth. If we live with this spirit—tender, aware, and unified—we might shape a world more just and beautiful for us all.

When it’s over, I want to say my life was a marriage to amazement. I was the bridegroom, holding the world in my arms with unrelenting wonder.

So, let us not ask whether we have made our lives exceptional but instead strive to live so deeply, so profoundly real, that we are not left sighing in fear or regret. This is my wish—for myself and for you, dear reader.

Let us refuse to be mere visitors in this world. Let us inhabit it fully, leaving behind a quiet testament that we truly belonged.

🌱✨

When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse

to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;
when death comes
like the measle-pox

when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth,
tending, as all music does, toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.

When it's over, I want to say all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it's over, I don't want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.

I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.

I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.

— Mary Oliver.