A Word for 2016 ...

What is your word for the year ahead? 

A word which contains within it a seed of invitation to cross a new threshold in your life?

Christine Valters Paintner

Hello everyone!

Here we stand on the edge of 2016, a new year full of promise and possibility. Thresholds such as these are times when we can consciously choose to relinquish the old, the tired and the overly familiar to step into a new space with arms and eyes wide open, ready to receive whatever gifts await us in the months ahead.

Thresholds are in-between places where the old is gone and the new has not yet arrived. In many spiritual traditions, these thresholds are seen as sacred places where the veil between earth and heaven is particularly thin. They are places where we can pause to reflect upon the past, deciding what wisdom and experiences we want to take forward with us into the new year. They are also places where we can look ahead with intentional openness to all that is to come. The ancient Celts, who honoured such thresholds, believed that there were unseen presences in these liminal spaces waiting to support us as we step onto new paths.

A more concrete support for the journey, one about which I've written in the past, is the process of allowing a word to "choose you" and act as a guide through the new year.  (You can click on the link to see the steps in this process and "receive" your own intuitive word for 2016.) 

As I look back over the past few years, I can see the positive effect wrought in my life by receiving and reflecting upon each guiding word. There is a clear (to me) connection among the four words I've "received" since learning about this enlivening tradition and I can see, in retrospect, how each has built on the one before. The words I've received thus far are act, veriditas, suppleness and alive.  I will be excited to see what my unconscious will produce for 2016.

As we each wait for our word to come clear, let me leave you with one of Jan Richardson's lovely blessings (you know how I love the notion of blessing!) along with every good wish for this new and beckoning year.

Blessing the Threshold

This blessing 

has been waiting for you

for a long time.

While you have been 

making your way here

this blessing has been 

gathering itself

making ready

biding its time

praying.

This blessing has been

polishing the door

oiling the hinges

sweeping the steps

lighting candles

in the windows.

This blessing has been

setting the table

as it hums a tune

from an old song

it knows,

something about

a spiralling road

and bread

and grace.

All this time

it has kept an eye

on the horizon,

watching,

keeping vigil,

hardly aware of how 

it was leaning itself

in your direction.

And now that

you are here

this blessing

can hardly believe

its good fortune

that you have finally arrived

that it can drop everything

at last

to fling its arms wide

to you, crying

welcome

welcome

welcome.

Welcome to 2016, dear friends!