Pan au chocolat:A rare indulgence that tastes
even better for its infrequency.
Listening to: From one of my favorite holiday albums. I love his voice -- so mellow and smooth.
Bliss: A large beeswax candle is burning a few feet from me, lit for all the intentions and prayers and wishes you have been leaving in the comments. May its light brighten all our shadowed places and drive out fear and inaction.
Christine Kane, singer, songwriter, workshop leader, and blogger (and the interview here tomorrow), is hosting guest writers on her blog for the month of December. She has asked them to each write about a word for the year.
Instead of setting New Year's resolutions (which I may also do), she proposes establishing a word that you will focus on for the year. A word that will act as mantra and guide.
Before knowing of Christine's work, I had actually done this spontaneously for myself about a year and a half ago, and for that amount of time, I have been focusing on the same word.
Yes.
This came about, like much growth, through pain.
Unexpectedly, we lost one cat and then another was diagnosed with what would eventually take his fur suit also. This all happened within one year's time.
As you can imagine, I was thrown into some very dark places by this. Sad and dank places. I've written about the spiritual revelations of that time already but not about the main thing that actually helped.
Soon after Ernie left for his sparkle suit, I started attending Mass again. This did not last long. The priest at the church near to me is not to my liking. Enough said.
But I started doing some deep thinking about the meaning behind the resurrection. And a line during mass really caught my attention, "Be free of all anxiety."
It hit me that that is the main gift of the resurrection. Christ was saying, "look, the main thing you fear -- death -- is not to be feared so get out there and GO!"
This then lead me to prayer, but I wasn't comfortable with free form prayer after so many years of denying myself this activity (due to an overinflated sense of "being intellectual").
I turned to something I had been comfortable with in the past: the rosary and a devotion to Mary. The feminine divine.
Most days, while Jobie was sick, I could barely get myself to leave the house for fear that he would need something, but I would take a quick walk around the park and I was usually wearing a rosary bracelet. I know that there are mysteries that we are "supposed" to contemplate, but I decided to focus on the beauty and mystery of the life of Mary.
And eventually I came to see her as this amazing roll model for living a full and engaged life.
To understand that, you have to move beyond seeing her as a minor player, as someone acted upon.
No, Mary was much more than that. When the angel visited her, he asked if she would be willing. He asked. That is key. She was allowed to turn him down. But she did not. In light of all the sorrow this was surely to bring, all the pain and heartache and difficulty and challenge, she did not say no.
She said yes.
Freely.
The power of this hit me: to say yes to life is not to say yes to the good parts but to say yes to the whole thing. She said yes even while her son was being tortured and murdered; she walked with him and did not turn from his death.
I determined that loving Jobie (or anyone) and experiencing his joy meant also that I would unflinchingly say yes to his death. And my partner and I did do that -- I was holding him and she was right there and we did not look away. As he took his last, little breath, we were right there, saying yes the whole time.
Since his death, I have continued to focus on this magical, beautiful, transformative word.
But now it is time for change. I have been keeping time with, walking to the beat of, breathing in and out with the word yes for a year and a half now.
This is a word you could easily spend many lifetimes with, but I would like to move to a new word for the year 2009, a word that is more active.
And so I choose my word of the year: fly.
It is time to unfurl my wings.
How about you?
8 comments:
Oh Christine this is so beautiful. We just went through a similar thing with our friend leaving his cat suit, and I had the same feeling, that the sadness of holding him at the end was part of the yes to all the joy he had brought us. You said it so wonderfully, thank you.
I've been reading Christine's blog too, and the guests on their words, and have been trying to decide on a word. I love your word, fly. You will, too, you will super fly, you will soar!
I came to thank you for your lovely comment and say YES! to your offer of a Wednesday Shared Bliss interview..(after Christmas? beginning of January?)when I read your post and fell over.
I lost both my long-term cats this year, May and August, I'm a big fan of Mary and the Feminine Divine, and no kidding, my word too is FLY!
Erie Life Magazine December Issue came to me today. The issue is devoted to faith.
This magazine is a local production and I have never seen an issue so jam packed on one topic.
I believe this sector would call it ReadableBliss, as a category.
It is cheap, here's a link:
http://www.erielifemagazine.com/
I never heard about this "word" wish come true, but it is fascinating to observe the word choices from the various wordsmiths.
Before I offer a word for you to consider, let me ask if either of the following two phrases sound like your life now,...or in the next apparently difficult year to come----given our economic crumble.
Look at 1 and 2:
1 : the capability of a strained body to recover its size and shape after deformation caused especially by compressive stress
2 : an ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change
I suspect that covers most of us.
The word is "resilience".
(It is even fun to say out loud). :-D
Should you desire to employ that word as your own in the next week, month, year, or lifetime, here is a tip.
I love to have flowers around the house. Lots of color too.
But flowers require sunlight, so I tend to bunch 'em in the window.
After a while, I notice the effect of phototropism, with each flower severely bent into the sunshine. They are trying desperately to engage every wavelength of light, and my flowers are willing to become deformed if necessary to get their drug of choice, sunlight!
They smash their faces to the window panes.
If you try to bend them back into shape, the stems break and the flower dies.
There is a simple remedy.
I simply turn the pot 180 degrees and the entire flower now faces into the house AWAY from the light.
They are now in the Advent of their life cycle.
Here is where "resilience" comes in...either 1 or 2 above qualifies.
Those flowers now facing inside, begin to thirst for the sun in an opposite direction. They arc until straight up at the ceiling, and then, begin a new lean into the sunlight.
Eventually, those resilient stems are bent all the way opposite from the beginning.
So I spin the plates, turn the pots, and watch the entire dynamic unfold anew.
If you want resilience in your life, load up your windows with flowers to remind you that the most delicate of stems can be flattened to the floor. But a little sunshine will lift it high anew.
And if a flower can do that with light....
you can too.
I recommend "resilience", if you don't have a word.
You can even borrow it without a library card.
I hope your Advent so far has incorporated resilience. We as people, are bent as far away from the light as we can get, at this time of year (well, in 2 weeks). An increase in light is soon to follow.
Bliss Blessings to all.
I've done this for quite a few years - I had a year of health, joy, reaching out, peace, and character. I am still thinking about this upcoming year.I look forward to the interview with Christine Kane.
What an utterly fabulous idea! Still thoughtful on what my word will be...
Thank you!
I still sometimes struggle with (that) Mary as the feminine divine, still find her more difficult to disentangle from my Catholic convent grammar school than Magdalene.
But reading posts like yours feel a bit like building blocks to a new Mary.
And as to my word - hmmm, gonna have to ponder that one.
Tess, I'm glad that my writing about Mary feels like building blocks and not just more the knocking down of your past experiences. :)
Kavindra and Gracie, You know I feel deeply for your losses. We are blessed to have fur friends in our lives.
This is very similar to how I structure my Rosh Hashanah rituals each year. I ask people to have the courage to name their year. The name can be a real name they want to take on or just an idea, but during the ritual they make a commitment to try and live up to the ideal of the name for the next year.
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