In winter our planet moves around to the best possible angle for evening sun. Through my kitchen window, night after December night, the gloaming envelops everything with it’s vibrance. And as 2014 is coming to an end, it’s now time to hibernate, look back and look forward.
Every year around this time I choose a word to guide me through the following year. Last year it was Pilgrimage which allowed me to sail into my sixties with imagination. This year I am being drawn in another direction.
Here’s how it works.
Around this time of the year I start to doodle in a journal. Spider mind maps, lists, words. I started one thread recently by thinking about the lake, then lake goddesses, then deep water, deep-end, out of my depth, deeper, and so on…… it’s about exploring rather than planning, it’s playing.
Later in the New Year of 2015 I will settle on a word which becomes like a loose web into which my life and work fall. Something like that anyway! In 2012 I chose EXPAND, in 2013 I chose LIGHT.
So maybe you would like to have a go this year? Susannah Conway has a Workbook which might help. Or you could design your own method? Just choose a word that will light you up and allow your mind to run amuck with delight! For some reason the vagueness and focus of choosing ONE word, works a kind of alchemy…. if you let it.
Have you ever experimented with choosing a word for your year? If so I’d love to hear about it. If not then I hope you will enjoy the hibernation of advent and these December skies
Beautiful photos! I like the idea of a single word and will give it a go perhaps though with my butterfly mind I might find it difficult I fear.
Haha! Marigold, give yourself as many as you want……and a butterfly mind sounds beautiful!
I found this one word idea through you Catherine and finally found mine last year, Thrive. It was a perfect word to help me out of the chaos, stress, and unhealthy environments and habits…it showed me the light to help me move in directions where I could thrive. Now on the path of healing, I am looking for my next word and am using Susannah's course as you know. I am enjoying the process so far. Last year I found my word in meditation.
Well I could see that you were thriving Donna, as well as taking risks and shining! Meditation probably describes the best possible way to find it. Look forward to hearing your word and seeing where it takes you. x
Ah so this is the gloaming. Now I feel I've really seen it. For me, New Year's Eve is my least favorite holiday of the year. All I want to do is to sit in front of a life-giving fire with a plate of lox and a glass of champagne and be still. Maybe love on Paddy awhile. Then I get out my notebook and find a word–just like you do. I haven't found mine yet. Rather I've found six or eight. It remains to be seen which one settles after the playfulness and happiness of Christmas Eve–singing with the children–after I've cried the loss of my little sister, after I've sat with hot chocolate in front of a fulsome tree with plaid bows. Sometime around the 31st, I'll know.
Me too Susie, I like to let it all seep in a while and come up with my word gradually. I can just picture you eating lox, drinking champagne and loving on Paddy!!! After we have all cried for our precious loved ones, maybe we can move on to the chocolate and face the New Year. x
Thank you Catherine for yet another inspiring entry. I love your work. Your photos are a door to a mystical, magical world of beauty. You make me want to go through. This time of the year is pregnant with the power of reflection and I love your idea of finding our special word. I'll be focusing on finding my word and letting it guide me through this coming year. I need that.
Dear Yota, thank you so much, I really felt your connection and loved your words, mystical, magical, beauty!! I too love the process of finding the word and let it take as long as possible…..it fuels the imagination x
I love these photographs. I am very aware that the losses and difficulties of this year have hit all sorts of things for me, including taking pictures. As I face the next year when I expect to finally lose my father to the motor neurone disease which has been taking him from us slowly all year I think my word will have to be resilience.
Elizabeth, I know exactly what you mean, it is such a struggle for many of us and the grief always surfaces at this time of the year. My heart goes out to you for next year and what you and your father face. My own Dad passed away this time three years ago now. It is still so sad. Much love to you and I hope your word gives you some back up when you need it most. x
So loving that third image! Fantastic! Interesting…I think about the "word" for the year, but have rarely done anything with it. But things have kinda come together and it was sealed while visiting Myanmar…so stay tuned!
Robin can't wait to hear about that and Myanmar, I am very tuned!!