How It Works:

1. Read the poem 

2. Do your own reflection on it, noting what it inspires in you

3. Feel free to use your own reflection as your prompt or…

4. Use the selection of prompts below

5. Pick one that inspires you and write (feel free to use only one or write several poems using different prompts) or…

6. Don’t use any of the provided prompts and follow your inspiration from wherever it comes

A Morning Offering

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 hunger 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 do at last what I came here for
And waste my heart on fear no more.

By John O’Donohue
From A Book of Blessings by John O’Donohue

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The next Read-Around is 12/11/25 at 5:00 PM PST

My Thoughts

The New Year marks a moment of collective celebration and brings with it the excitement and burden of new beginnings. We are challenged to view our lives with fresh eyes, to peer beyond where we’ve been, and to forge a path ahead by instituting resolutions, usually in the form of conscious goals pursued through willful action. Unfortunately, the  force of rigidity it takes to drive ourselves forward resolutely is exhausting and most give up on those goals relatively quickly. In a strange twist, the word resolve comes from Latin roots meaning to loosen, unbind, or set free. In other words, the true nature of resolution is not an act of force, but an act of surrender. The late Irish poet, John O'Donohue, was an artist of the heart with a special talent for articulating a soulful sense of beginning  that does not depend on our modern concept of resolutions. His poem, A Morning Offering, turns back to the roots of the word resolve as a process of letting go and attending to the invisible geography that invites us to new frontiers. It begins with setting the ghosts of longing free and allowing what is already emerging a chance to come forth. This kind of beginning does not need a calendar date or a collective ritual or a membership in a gym. It does require the courage to break the dead shell of yesterday's, to risk being disturbed and changed and, in another strange twist, the courage to surrender ourselves to our Self.

Prompt Ideas

1. Journal or write a poem about your own Morning Offering

2. Write about the ghosts of longing that you are ready to set free.

3. Journal or write a poem about that within you that welcomes the wonder of the day? What internal shift or external catalyst inspires you to wonder?

4. Journal or write a poem describing what you might place on “the altar of dawn.” Or take some of O’Donohue’s content as your prompt and write about the quiet loyalty of breath or the tent of thought or the waves of desire to which you are the shore…

5. In what way would you like to come alive today? What might it require for your mind to “come alive?” How might you break the dead shell of yesterdays or what allows you to risk being disturbed or changed.

6. Write about the invisible geography (or the visible one in the world around you) what in it invites you to new frontiers? What makes you want to explore (or recall a time when you did explore) a place or a thing?

7. Journal or write a poem about the dream you are postponing. What might allow you to postpone it no more? Joiurnal or write a poem about one thing you can do today that fulfills what you came here for?

8. Write about anything else in the poem or in life that inspires you.