Word 2015

It's that time of year.
Liminal time for me as I pause between the celebrations of Winter Solstice and my time of retreat.
Time to review 2014 and prepare for entering 2015.

One of the ways I like to enter a new year is to choose a word for it. This year, I came across Susannah Conway's page (not for the first time, but it's been awhile since I've been there.) She has some lovely free offerings: a whole workbook for end-of-year/beginning-new-year and a short, sweet and effective 5-email guide to help people find their Words. There's an optional Facebook group, too, where you can see how people are working on this.

Here's what I just posted there today:

I came to Susannah's wonderful Find Your Word with a word I was pretty certain about. It's the same word I had in 2010 - an exhausting, brilliant year in which I won contests, a state grant, had my first gallery exhibit and chaired a workshop on healing loss through expressive art. 


The word is FOCUS. 
I need an imperative, a command word. I need it to be a touchstone for guidance for this year. I need to cut through all the amazing things of this world that interest me, enchant me - so many things that I am overwhelmed, distracted, scattered. 
As I've worked through email 3, FOCUS remained the very best word for me.

 I'm blown away by the dictionary definitions and synonyms for FOCUS both as noun and verb:

 
center, heart, root, cornerstone, essence, convergence, 
concentrate, emphasize

adapt to the prevailing level of light and become able to see clearly

become concentrated into a sharp beam of light or energy

It goes on. And the origin is Latin, literally "domestic hearth."

Yup, I'm in for FOCUS 2015. Maybe it will be my Word for the rest of my life. It's perfect.

Yet I have other words that resonated for other parts of my being. I don't want to let them go completely. I have a 2015 Word Constellation now.

dare - because I need to dare to try new things with my work


brave - because I need to not allow worrying & being fearful of so much
to interfere with my work


yes! - because someone told me not to think about letting go of things as I focus, but of what I am saying yes! to.

Finally "with shining eyes."
 It's one of the four principles of Saori freestyle weaving. Weave with shining eyes. To me it means eyes shining both with joy and sometimes with tears. I want to do everything with shining eyes.

I decided to create a visual with Scapple, *  a pretty fabulous mapping tool application. I wanted to connect all the words with each other. There are infinite ways to arrange this constellation, and I am still playing with that. Here's a picture of how it emerged right at first. 


I am joyful to have decided on my word. Even more joyful to feel so right about it. And about the whole Word Constellation. The last couple of years I don't think I've felt so right about my words. And I certainly did not utilize them as much as I'd like.


*(NOT an affiliate link- just a connection to something that has been fun and useful for me - check it out!)