A Word for the New Year

We Shake with Joy by Mary Oliver from Evidence (Beacon Press)
We shake with joy, we shake with grief,
What at time they have, these two
housed as they are in the same body.



The practice of choosing a word (or having one chosen for me) for the new year began several years ago on the first-ever New Year's Eve retreat I attended.  After we'd finished reflecting on and letting go of the year that had passed, the retreat leader went around to everyone gathered and offered up a basket with little folded rectangles of stiff paper with a single word printed on each. As we chose one and opened it, we were invited to share with the circle our guiding word for the coming year. 

I remember being impressed and inspired as people shared their words-- grace, forgiveness, healing, courage, transformation.  It seemed like everyone was pulling out weighty words.  Powerful words.  Words that could echo like thunder or shine like a beacon in the year to come.  The basket finally made it to me and I expectantly unfolded my paper and read, "Beauty." 

I was miffed.

Beauty seemed like such a fluff word compared to all the others.  I felt like the universe had armed everyone else with a treasure trove of virtues and sent them off to boldly explore and conquer the new year while I got a pat on the head and a lollipop.  But I stuck with beauty throughout the year and, as it turned out, the universe knew what it was doing.  

One November I was on a train traveling through the Grampians in Scotland, a gentleman in the seat across from my showed me how to spot the herds of red deer that were grazing in the burnished heather.  It took a while for my eyes to distinguish the shapes of the deer in the distance but once I got the hang of it, I discovered the mountains were teeming with the creatures.  Beauty opened up to me in much the same way that year.  Once I had the word and started learning how to recognize it, I soon discovered it was all around me, despite what the trials and tribulations of the previous year had left me thinking.  

The next year I was back at the same retreat center, with many of the same people in the circle, when I chose the word gratitude, which opened me up in a similar way.  The year after that the word was discipline.  That was a word I consciously chose for myself feeling I needed it . . . an experiment that didn't go so well.    The next year I didn't choose a word but the year after that I was given the only word left in the basket after a New Year's retreat I helped planned but couldn't attend due to a family emergency:  Risk.  The retreat leader apologized but I knew that was the word I was meant to have.  That was the year in which my full time job ended, I spent the summer traveling to distant shores (often on my own), I started working for myself, I completely discarded my dissertation research and topic and began work on a new project, and I finally decided to take my writing seriously . . .  and more importantly, telling people I was doing just that.  (Accountability is another word I need but haven't chosen yet.)

In 2010 my spiritual director chose my word for me-- spontaneity.  In 2011 the word was gift, a word received as a gift in a dream on New Year's Eve.  In 2012 I was back to picking a square of folded up paper and got love.  (And, in hindsight, I did get a lot of love last year, albeit none of the romantic nature.)

And this year, this year the word is joy.  Thus the Mary Oliver poem above. 

Joy is actually a good word for this year.  Last year ended on a wave of sorrow swept in by the events in the world.  In recent years I wouldn't  have allowed myself to feel grief or joy or any intense emotion in between.  Somehow along the way I had come to confuse detachment with non-attachment. All the great spiritual traditions have a component of non-attachment to them-- not holding onto the things of the world too tightly.  But I wasn't just not holding on, I kept my fists ungratefully closed.  I thought that if I didn't let myself feel any extreme emotion, life would be better, easier . . .   By avoiding pain though, I also missed out on elation.  And you can't have one without the other.

So this year I'm ready to shake myself up a bit.  I've been letting myself succumb to moments of pure, surprising, joy in simple things: an abundance of my favorite apples at the farmer's market on Saturday, the splash of yellow from a solitary persistent dandelion blooming in the frost covered grass in the park where I walk, an email from a friend whom I haven't been in touch with for far too long, the start of season three of Downton Abbey, and the tentative end to the NHL lock out.  I'm holding all these things lightly,  just trying to enjoy them when they happen and not expect too much (especially in terms of that last one on my list).  I'm simply keeping my hands open to receive all that 2013 will bring.

 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Curious as to what your word for 2013 is?  Here's the list I used for the New Year's retreat I led this year.  To find your word, look at the number on the list that corresponds to the day of your birth.

1.      Faith

2.      Balance

3.      Transformation

4.      Delight

5.      Grace

6.      Patience

7.      Compassion

8.      Gratitude

9.      Adventure

10.   Courage 

11. Forgiveness

12. Intention

13. Discipline

14. Creativity

15. Abundance

16. Openness

17. Love

18. Integrity

19. Healing

20. Generosity

21. Play

22. Joy

23. Trust

24. Listen

25. Harmony

26. Simplicity

27. Inspiration

28. Healing

29. Peace

30. Please

31. Awe

There's stuff and then there's stuff . . .

SWANS by Mary Oliver from Evidence (Beacon Press)
They appeared
   over the dunes,
      they skimmed the trees
         and hurried on

to the sea
   or some lonely pond
      or wherever it is
         that swans go,

urgent, immaculate,
   the heat of their eyes
      staring down
         then away,

the thick spans
   of their wings
      as bright as snow,
         their shoulder-power

echoing
   inside my own body.
      How could I help but adore them?
         How could I help but wish

that one of them might drop
   a white feather
     that I should have
         something in my hand

to tell me
   that they were real?
      Of course
         this was foolish.

What we love, shapely and pure,
   is not to be held,
      but to be believed in.
         And then they vanished, into the unreachable distance.

A few days ago a friend sent me a link to an article from the business section of The New York Times entitled "You Probably Have Too Much Stuff."  Written by Carl Richards, it's a short reflection on the cost of attachment to possessions. Richards was inspired by the story of Andrew Hyde, who reduced his worldly goods to a mere fifteen essential items.

In his own attempt to rid himself of extraneous possessions, Richards decided to begin by getting rid of fifteen things, mainly outdated clothes.  He goes on to recommend this formula that he used when evaluating his effects:

• Why exactly do you own what you own?

• What could you get rid of and not miss?

• Do I really still need that?

• What is it costing me to own that?

What really struck me about this article was the last question in particular.  Richards, a financial planner, naturally focuses on cost in terms of . . . well, money.  He mentions how acquiring possessions can lead to the need to acquire places to keep those possessions.  He wonders about the time lost to thinking about getting rid of an old tie in his closet rather than actually doing so each time he came across it while getting dressed.  And of course, as any good financial planner will tell you, time is money. 

It got me to thinking about how the article might be different if it was written by a spiritual director or life coach instead of a financial planner.  And the answer I came up with is not much different.  The questions Richards asks are good ones in terms of the whys and whats.  It's simply the cost/benefit perspective that skews differently.  Instead of pointing out the tax benefits of downsizing and donating the stuff we don't need, such an article might mention the spiritual/psychological benefits that we gain when we let go of attachments. 

As I wrote in this post earlier this year, I get the periodic impulse to purge.  Although my goal isn't to get down to fifteen items (surely books would be excluded from that number, and lipstick, and ballet flats, and sparkly vintage earrings) I do find it helpful to periodically go through my possessions, see what I'm still holding on to that doesn't fit me anymore-- literally or figuratively-- and figure out the why behind that. Examining my stuff helps me examine my stuff. 

Maybe this is one reason it takes me so long to clean my room, the basement, etc.  I'm not just cleaning house, I'm cleaning my psyche.

Donald Duck's brain from the classic Disney cartoon
Donald Duck in Mathmagic Land
I always related to this image, even as a child.