It’s been a few years since I first heard Sharon Salzberg’s much-repeated line: “The healing is in the return, not in never having wandered to begin with.” As I introduce the new issue, I’d like to take a moment to reflect on this statement since so much of the work included here explores themes of healing, wandering, and return.

In its purest form, “the healing is in the return” can be applied to the breath. We may sit down to meditate, begin to follow our breath, and find that yesterday’s regrets pull us back while tomorrow’s to-do list pulls us ahead.

Then after a few more moments, the distractions pass, and we’re back to breathing, in and out. We’ve returned. It’s a return to the awareness of our true nature. If we’re aware enough to notice when awareness has strayed and to refocus on the body and breath, that in itself is a healing process.

Over the past year, you may have found yourself in a creative groove, a period of generating lots of ideas, poems, paintings. Can this state of flow last forever?—I wish! Of course, there are lapses, weeks of busyness that take you away from your creative peak for a while. But you’re back now (at least the “now” in which you’re reading this), and you’re about to be inspired by 47 writers and artists who have shared their work with us.

And yes, we’ve also crossed the threshold of the new year. It’s a turn of the calendar page but also a return to light after reaching the solstice. Numerous holidays, traditions, and rituals offer some light within the darkness during this season, and whichever of them you participate in, I hope this issue—beginning with Sheree Wood’s wonderful cover art—brings some additional light for you as you start the new year.

As WRJ closes its third year and begins the fourth, I will offer another quote, this one from Ralph Waldo Emerson’s famous opening of the essay “Circles”: “The eye is the first circle; the horizon which it forms is the second; and throughout nature this primary picture is repeated without end. It is the highest emblem in the cipher of the world.”

Like the rhythm of breath, the flow of the creative process, or the cycle of the seasons, we too wander and return.

Thank you so much for being a part of the ride this past year.

Aaron Lelito, Editor in Chief