I toiled this year with my word of the year. So much has happened in the last few years, my husband and I have barely breathed. Each year, we seem to say--nothing big. No changes. And then something large happens. For our family, 2014 was a major year of change and rooting. This was my word of the year for 2014--ROOTS. As I had just moved to Central Pennsylvania, I wanted to plant some roots--both career-wise, friendships, colleagues, circles of women, roots for my children. There is nothing more rooting than birthing a child somewhere. It is now part of your being--the place. Your baby's home. This will be the only home Zachary will know, we think. That is powerful to imagine.
I grew up about an hour and half from where I now live. My parents are within an hour or two from me now, and the land, landscape, the trees feel like home. I know these rocks, the fields of corn and wheat, the horses which graze in our yard. I spent this year starting our farm. My feet dug into the earth of our small farm and roots began swirling in the loamy mix of new family soil. Nourished is how I felt, my nails dirty from the garden, and my knees sore from pulling weeds as we tended all these roots we planted. I couldn't imagine how this word would play out in my year. I found a home for my healing work at Alta View, and felt rooted there, held, nourished, supported. This year I considered the word blossoming...the natural growth from roots. Sprouting and blossoming is what I imagine this year being for me. But it is more, and the word didn't quite capture it.
I had a long list I started in early December of words I thought might capture this year. Austerity, fortitude, quiet, prudence...enough. WORTHY. Later I had narrowed it down to a few--integration, authenticity, acceptance, blossoming, mindful, utilize, enough, and resourceful.
See, here is the idea I am working with. I have spent the last few years taking classes like a dehydrated woman and wisdom was water. Classes on-line, circles of women, meditation circles, angel classes, oracle card creations, elemental workings, crystal certifications, reiki attunements. I am at a point that I am ready to take all this learning and turn it into teachings. Hell, I've been doing that this last few years, right? Working on clients, integrating my native wisdom, the teachings given to me and my creative fire into a unified healing style. If you have had a healing with me, you know I often do breath work, grab a rattle, use the hawk wing to draw energy, read Tarot, then place crystals on the body. I follow Spirit's guidance, and Spirit guided me to all these different classes.
All these classes and books are wonderful if you really sit with the work and allow it to integrate. Have I been sitting with it enough? I do my work, don't get me wrong, but I was going from one heavy deep class to the next. Your spirit needs quiet to process and integrate, and I wasn't giving myself that. I can be a workaholic. It has damaged relationships in the past, and this is another thing I have worked on the last few years--putting the phone down, writing less, living more, being present with my family. These on-line classes and workshops were heavy emotionally and spiritually. At some level, I wondered if they weren't punishing in some way. Maybe I needed to simply sit still, since sitting still is much harder for me that uncovering, explicating, talking about what is wrong with me. What if I could sit still and be comfortable with all this amazing work I have done this last few years?
The truth is I wonder if I have been collecting wisdom, like I once bought crystals and oracle cards. Is the collecting of wisdom materialistic? Or can it be? Can I look at this wisdom and integrate it, rather than simply catalogue it? Can I live the beautiful lessons I have learned the last six years? See, I noticed something about myself a few years ago. When I felt empty, or sad, I went to the metaphysical bookstore or the crystal shop or a religious store, and bought something spiritual. A crystal that a book said would soothe my emotional state, or a statue of a goddess who helps with wisdom or sadness or whatever I needed. I was consuming spiritual things in a sadly materialistic way. When I quit drinking, I realized I could get addicted to anything--was I becoming addicted to the spiritual? I made a vow this year to watch my spending around crystals and spiritual things. I've done a decent job. Not perfect, but decent. But every class I crossed my FB feed, and caught my fancy, I took. "I definitely need to learn how to do that!" This year 2015, I thought I want to be mindful about consuming wisdom, and begin to trust that I have enough wisdom. I no longer have to BUY things so I am wise or open or spiritual. I have all that I need now. I am enough. ENOUGH.
What word embodied that? Well, you read my list of words, and as I searched for ways these words have worked in other people's lives, I saw the word REALIZE. Bam. This is it. This is my word. I have three books half finished in my computer. One untouched for about four years, and others that are waiting to their realization. I have paintings I want to paint, classes I want to teach. And so I see this word realize. I realize my ideas into actions/books/classes, my learnings into teachings, my teachings into healings, my healings into a living wage...to make the wisdom and spiritual and emotional real. And maybe most importantly, to realize how beautiful, wise, nurturing, loving, important, spiritual I am. To realize I am enough. To realize my path clearly. To walk it authentically is to me to REALIZE the true Angie in all her glory.
What is your word of the year? Why did you choose it?