honoring my continuation day
Each year on my birthday, I pause and reflect—on how the year has been, and how I wish to move forward with intention. I often return to the spiritual teachings that have deeply shaped my inner life. I read. I journal. (And for decades now, I’ve closed this ritual with a little sage burning and the drawing of an angel card. 🙂)
Today, as I turn 57, I returned to the teachings of Thich Nhat Hanh, who offers a beautiful reframe: rather than celebrating a day of birth, he invites us to honor a “continuation day.”
A reminder that we are not separate from life, but part of a vast unfolding—shaped by the past, rooted in the present, and connected to all things.
We are a continuation of our ancestors, of the earth, of the cosmos. Instead of marking a single moment, we are invited to celebrate the flow of life itself—our connection, transformation, and belonging.
What a beautiful, liberating way to honor this day.
After steeping in these teachings, this poem flowed from that space of reflection. It is a bow to the child I was, the seeker I’ve been, the woman I am becoming, and the path I continue to walk—one breath, one pause, one return at a time.
I'd love to share it with you today, on my Continuation Day.
On My Continuation Day, I Pause
Today isn’t a line in time—
It’s a soft bell,
Ringing in the temple of my body.
I listen.
I breathe.
I remember:
I have never been separate—
But part of all that moves and rests,
Of earth, of sky,
Of tides that return and return.
I deepen...
Like a tree whose roots grown down
Spreading wide beneath the surface—
forming unseen connections,
drawing life from what is above
and what lies far below.
A living bridge of breath and stillness,
embodying it all.
The past isn’t behind me—
It lives within:
A thousand breaths,
Each one a guide.
Each one already gone.
Each one still here.
I bow to the child I was—
The one who laughed without reason.
I bow to the young woman I was—
Eager to race out and up into the world.
And I bow to the one who stumbles now,
Who still remembers to rise.
I bow to the one within me who knows to pause—
To soften, to land,
To arrive fully—now.
To relax.
To relax again.
And again.
To breathe,
To come home to myself,
Here, in this moment.
Here, in the continuum, where I belong.
Happy Continuation Day, dear me.
May I walk this next breath with awareness,
And return home with each step.
A reflection invitation:
What would it feel like to mark your birthday—or any day—not as a moment that separates past from future, but as a continuation of all that you are?
Today, I invite you to pause. To breathe. To bow to all the versions of you that have brought you here.
Maybe take a moment to reflect: How might you honor your own unfolding—one breath, one pause at a time?
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