Hello lovelies

I wish you all the most joy-filled year ahead, lavish with peace and abundant with miracles and dreams coming true. I wish that for all of us.

Around this time, many people are talking about what their word for the year will be. It’s an idea that seems to have really caught on as it doesn’t carry the burdensome weight of resolutions and all the judgements and built in failure they seem to bring with them. For the last three years I’ve chosen a word and it was extraordinary to watch what each one brought.

Last year I chose trust. I actually can’t remember why now, but let’s just say my understanding and the application of that word in my life was enormously and painfully tested, over and over, in ways I had not quite anticipated.

Over the last couple of weeks I’ve been mulling the whole idea over in my head and I realised that every time I thought about what word I would choose, I began to feel heavy and contracted. When I looked at that I realised it was because of all the difficult times my previous word choice{s} seemed to have brought me.

I do believe that in the long run these were necessary and beneficial experiences, but it does feel as though despite the many joys I have experienced in the last couple of years, there has also been an awful lot of pain, heaviness and dark times.

I’ve no doubt they would have happened whether I’d chosen a word or not, and I know that I have not been alone in finding the last couple of years turbulent; I think though that the focus a word gives does mean you are more mindful of each experience in that context. And perhaps it calls in experiences to help you grow where you’ve chosen.

Very unusually for me, I have begun this year on a low ebb; recent circumstances have provoked a loss of my usual enthusiasm for the clean slate newness of the beginning of a year. To be completely honest, my heart is heavy with grief as I find myself in a position where I simply must let go ~ of a deeply cherished friendship, of illusions, of old beliefs and dreams and ideals that the universe in its wisdom apparently deems not for me.

However, I would like my year ahead to have some sort of a gentle focus. It sounds like semantics but instead of a word this year, I’ve decided to go for a theme instead. It feels so much softer and more manageable somehow.

I drew out a diagram of my theme the other night, to see how it might look. At the centre of it all is EASE. Just saying that word invokes some relief in me; it seems to offer a space to rest when things seem overwhelming.

Also, lightness. When you’ve spent two thirds of your life in close companionship with depression, you really know the difference between light and heavy! I no longer suffer with depression these days, but when sadness comes, it is very heavy and intense indeed, so I’m calling in lightness now.

Another aspect of my theme is flow. Creative flow, life flow, experience, choice, connection flow. Flow in every area. As I write this I can feel how comforting and soft this all feels!

I have dreams and wishes for the year ahead of course, but this year I am allowing it to be more spacious, no grand statements about what will be achieved or planned, and will endeavour to bring to it the best that I can in each moment. I am learning to witness, to be ‘in the world but not of it’, to not get so entangled in the machinations of ego, and to allow spirit to direct me. I wrote a poem at the end of 2011, which I will be revisiting as a reminder of this.

One thing I can promise; I will still be sharing photos from the beach, my new home and the studio and all that happens in there. So I hope you’ll stick around. 🙂

xx