Hey guess who's been sick? Yep. Us three. Still are, but I'm good enough to come back to work and annoy the heck out of everyone with my old man cough and moaning about my sinuses.
So I'm going to move past that and try to convince myself that my new year is here now. We've had beautiful winter weather - all sharp frosts and bright sunshine - that has had me aching to get outside with my camera but I just couldn't. Could. Not. So I was feeling frustrated about what is one of my favourite times of the year. I love all the de-cluttering and mental organising and dreaming and planning that we're inspired to do with a new year ahead. This year I've only just started and it's the 4th already but I have started! And it feels great.
I was struggling with my word for 2010. For 2008 I chose Beauty and it was a cracker. For 2009 I chose Work, thinking it was about commitment and determination but it turned out to be about, er, work. Last year had some glorious moments but oh dear god it was hard work. Or about my day job work. Or someone else's work. Or making situations work. I totally forgot the Universe's tendency to be literal.
Feeling a bit more circumspect as I approached the task this time around, I wasn't sure I'd bother.Or maybe I'd have three or four. A sentence or two. Paragraph for the Year anyone?
I have a strong desire to relax into my femininity this year. Not in the stereotypical, media-fuelled, submissive, dependent, Confessions of a Shopaholic, frivolous way but in a powerful way. I've always had a tendency towards, well, androgyny I guess. At least when I was younger. I was never confident in my appearance or my knowledge of what a girl IS so I just avoided the issue and sat somewhere in the middle. I grew up with three brothers, it's a comfy place for me. My mother meanwhile, was the classic giggly flirt (in fact she was still doing it on Saturday at the supermarket checkout) and I hated it. Loathed it. I still want to scream in the face of simpering women. And why is it that advertising images of supposedly Powerful Women all seem to involve them wearing as little clothing as possible, pulling pouty faces that they would never have call to create in real life - how would they ever speak? Oh wait... - and generally looking like all they think about is sex? Why is that powerful? Sex has huge threads of personal and mutual power through it and exploring them can be amazing but surely it's about more than being available or dangling yourself in front of someone?
A woman's power is rooted in so many aspects of life. The Divine Feminine is what I want to explore; it ties in with my Sacred Natural profile. And a part of it is, yes I admit, about a more feminine physical presence. I now have four skirts and three dresses, people! They will be worn with big boots and no heels but even so... I usually wear some make-up but I want to do it better. I'm growing my hair longer because - although I find short, cropped hair to be very sexy - I haven't had long hair for years and I want that feeling back. I'm always going to be a low maintenance kinda gal, but I think it will be fun to be more girlie. Not least because at this point in my life it would be easy to fade into feeling invisible and I'm not happy with that. Mostly, it's just that I feel I haven't been living up to the huge creative potential that all women have. Not necessarily artistically creative, but certainly creative in building a life.
So that was one possible word: Woman.
Another was Focus. You need only look back through a few weeks of this blog to see that my attention span is somewhat short. I don't think this is a chemical thing, I think it's a learned behaviour. It's all about resistance and procrastination. This year I simply have to get past this and get on with stuff. I'm re-reading the War of Art - such a great book - and talking myself into not being distracted by pretties or, as is more usually the case, Another Great Idea.
Other words...I tried Space, Courage, Action, Professional (see War of Art), Light...but none of them was inclusive enough. So I stopped trying so hard and then as I was cleaning my teeth last night (I know, I'm all about the romantic muse right?) I was thinking about something else completely when a voice whispered in my ear,"Glow".
bloom, blossom, blush, brilliance, effulgence, embers, flame, flush, gleam, glimmer, gusto, heat, incandescence, intensity, light, luminosity, passion, radiance, splendour, vividness, warmth, be suffused, blaze, brighten, ignite, kindle, redden, shine, smoulder, thrill.
- I will claim my power and have it glow through everything I do.
- I will stop worrying about the correctness of self-exploration when so many people in the world will never have time nor opportunity to indulge in it and instead acknowledge that I do no one any favours by living in sympathy pain. It's patronising and ineffective. It's far better I let my life glow and if I need to use terms such as Soul Explorer in order to do that then that's just fine. Heh.
- I will stop hiding my glowing light under a bushel. I'm not forcing anyone else to look but I'm no longer keeping it under wraps.
- I will glow with good physical and mental health.
- I will make my personal career plans glow with the heat of my focus, Dude. Like totally.
- I will practise Reiki regularly and share it with others so that they can have a little Reiki glow themselves!
- I will glow like the hot chick I truly am. Yeah baby.
- I will feel the glow of letting the soft animal of my body love what it loves.
- I will be less judgemental of others and instead enjoy the glow of mutual warmth.
- I will find the glow of life and love in my photography.
That's quite a list but I think I can work with it. I figure that the downside is that at my age I'm probably due to start with the wondrous glowing of hot flushes before long but hey...so be it! And maybe I should double-check our buildings insurance just in case. Because that would be bad.
I'm going to focus (see? see?) on blogging at wag bark love for the time being and just pop up on here when I feel the urge but tell me, what are you planning for 2010?
Happy Monday.
...
image (c) Kale Crane
