It’s the beginning of a new year already and thinking back on all of the things I’ve done in the last year, I’m not unhappy with my progress…just decidedly distracted. I’d christened 2008 as my “Year of Chrysalis” and boy was it. I felt at the beginning of 2008 a total desire – scratch that – need for isolation and a chance to be re-born. Last year was the first year I did not attend a full Winter Monastery Movement in four years, and I felt it. As much as I always questioned why I went to retreat in the first place, I never denied the physical, mental, emotional, structural impact it made on my life once I returned to the World.
This year, this is my year of Renewal, Reclaiming, Redefining, RE-RE-RE-Re…I feel like Aretha Franklin…. But seriously, as I type, I am well aware I have given my body over to my circumstances and now it is time to change that. In the fall of 2007 I began a new ‘desk’ job and I let the situation drag my morale down. I shouldn’t have. The people in my office are friendly, aware, intelligent, and few. But I must now speak to the sluggish nature of my body, it is time for ‘change’ – as it has now become fashionable.
So, I begin 20-09, my mind completely wired with what is, what is not, what is to come, what has failed and what has succeeded. And now to compliment my wired mind, I approach my own personal movement and meditative practices with a different kind of vigor than in years past. I approach my personal practices now with gratitude – deep and undeniable, gratitude for just having a body that will do much of what I ask it and a mind that can absorb and comprehend most of what I am curious about in the world.
