Showing posts with label resolutions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label resolutions. Show all posts

Friday, January 1, 2016

New Year's Day 2016


Once again, New Year's Day has come around. The wheel of the year turns. Celebrations abound.

My New Year's Days over the past several years have been spent looking back in order to move forward. In truth, I've done this most of my life, in various moments of awareness.

As 2016 begins, I sit and write. It's my passion. I feel more vital when I pour my life, my heart, my words onto the page. As my words flow, it's as though my heartbeats even out and I am content within.

Reflections:
Last year began with a ceremony of acceptance of my own personal power in the world. One thread that's woven throughout last year's tapestry is awareness. All of my past days have led me to this one. How often do I get the opportunity to recall this? How often do I take that opportunity in a good way?
Spring brought with it a new camera and explorations of my photographic eye. I played with pictures, took workshops, progressed closer to expressing myself as a photographer. How incredible to be blessed with beauty all around and have a way to capture some of it and share it!
Summer found me spending three weeks wandering Maine, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia with one of my dearest friends. Time flowed and paused and rushed throughout those days and weeks. We found a pace together. I relaxed into the new and familiar before returning to work. What an amazing, incredible blessing of time and presence!
Fall returned me to work, renewed and refreshed. New plans formed and played themselves out. New roles and new players blossomed into form. Days and weeks slipped quickly, quietly, noisily and freely by. It's wonderful to have a career that expands my world.
As the holidays approached, more changes arose. One who spent numerous holidays with me, could not this year. So I traveled again, spending time in a new place and finding peace there. Then returning home to finish the year with family and friends there. My personal circle often seems small in comparison to that of others, but it is the right and most beautiful size for me.

Resolutions:
Ah. I don't trust that process of resolution-making and eventual resolution-breaking. Simple plans and hopes for the coming year include growing ever healthier by continuing to eat better and exercising more consistently; reading more and writing more; continuing to explore myself as a photographer, traveler, pilgrim. With luck and blessings, those things will bloom as the Light continues to return.

What about you? How do you pass from the old year to the new? What shows up when you check the year's rear view mirror? Where are you heading in the coming year? What do you want to increase in your life? to decrease? May beauty and joy bubble over you this New Year's Day.

Friday, January 24, 2014

Janus & Resolutions

Janus, the god for whom the month of January is named, is the guardian god of transitions. A fitting god to guard the transition from one year to the next. Because he looks both forward and back, the possibilities are all seen by and available to him.

January is the month for considering changes and new beginnings, which is the very reason for making resolutions.

The simple fact that Janus stands firmly in the present moment gets overlooked as the duality of his vision grows in focus. Looking at all the possibilities and options available does not mean leaving the reality of Now.

The above image shows Janus's two faces as being old and young. This is one view, probably coming from the same imaginative place as the old Father Time and the diapered Baby New Year images. It's easier for us to think of him this way... yet we still miss the Now when we do.

What do you see when you look back on 2013? What do you see when you look forward to 2014? How is your vision of Now influenced by looking back and looking forward?