Theme of the Year

 Even though I'm doing things differently this year, I decided to keep an old standby. I have chosen a guiding word of the year for years now. However, they have been hit and miss. In 2020, I tried choosing a theme of the year. That was going very well and likely would have been quite successful if the world hadn't fallen apart. Once the pandemic hit, I did not get to hunker down and quarantine. I lost my job and had to find a new one. The job I found, still required me to deal with the public so after work I would just come home a rest. Trying to keep my job and my health were my only goals. 

In 2021, I didn't even bother. That year was more about recalibrating, accepting and getting used to the new normal. I progressed at my job but didn't really have the bandwidth for much else.

Now, in 2022, I want to get back on my path. I didn't get to really work with my theme of the year in 2020 so I am going to try working with a theme of the year that works with my desire to live more seasonally in 2022.

My theme of the year is:

Tending the Garden

If you have read this blog over the years, then you know that I have planted a lot of seeds but struggle to bring them to fruition. This year I'm going to try to change that. I went back over my posts and listed all of the seeds that I want to try to grow again only this time, I am going to spend more time creating a plan to properly care for the seeds. Some of them are quite lofty so I will focus on the basic ones, ones that will build a foundation (my theme for 2020) and create fertile soil. As you can tell, I'm really loving the gardening analogies.

Spring Equinox as the New Year

 Every year around the new year, I sit down and reflect on the previous year. I download Susannah Conway's Unravel Your Year workbook and sometimes other workbooks I want to try, get them printed, and try to work through them. I also choose a guiding word or theme for the year. Almost every year, it doesn't work out. I always find it to be such a struggle. I struggle to fill out the workbooks completely. I struggle to plan out the next year. Whatever I end up coming up with, I lose focus on it quickly. 

This year, I'm trying something different. The past couple of years, I've been paying attention to my natural urges and noticed that I tend to feel more eager to plan my year around March and April. Then last year, I really started thinking about the idea of living seasonally and decided to try it out. 

When you think about it, it doesn't make much sense for January 1st to be considered the new year. It is the middle of winter. The world, at least the northern hemisphere, it still at rest. Nothing is happening. It doesn't match up with natural cycles in any way. I started to realize that I tend to view the beginning of spring as the new year. So this year, I am running with that idea and I'll see how it goes.

This winter, I spent my time nesting and preparing for the spring. I finally broke up with my boyfriend and really felt the need to clean and clear the energy. I want to turn my apartment into my sanctuary. It's going to take some time as I am in the middle of paying off a debt, so it will take some time to bring in some of the things I want. In the meantime, I am focusing on clearing out what I don't want anymore.

For the Spring Equinox, which is what I will consider the first day of the year, I downloaded Susannah Conway's workbook again and I downloaded Erin Bruce's Wheel of the Year workbook. Erin Bruce's blog, The Seasonal Soul, is what made me finally decided to try living more seasonally. I rearranged the pages of the Wheel of the Year workbook so that the winter section is in the end. Then I broke up the Unravel Your Year workbook into parts based on what I thought I would like to focus on each season and mixed those pages in with the appropriate season in the Wheel of the Year workbook. I'll work with this workbook for through out the year to help me figure out this living seasonally concept and see if it will work for me.