Re-dedication ...

It's never too late to be who you 
might have been.

George Eliott

Happy New Year, Everyone!

Today, the beginning of a new year and a new decade, is an opportunity to re-dedicate ourselves to the things that matter most to us.  In this threshold space, we can take a moment to remember - or reprioritize - the core values by which we want to live our lives.  And, having done that, we can set an intention to act in accordance with these values throughout the New Year.

Caregiving can greatly limit your ability to pursue the external goals you've set for your life, to live the life you were "meant to live". In fact, this can be one of the major losses underlying a family caregiver's Chronic Sorrow. However,  the inability to pursue external goals needn't keep you from re-dedicating yourself to inner goals. Do you ever wish you could be kinder, more compassionate with yourself and others, more honest, calmer, more loyal, more open-minded, more balanced, more trusting, more trust-worthy, more patient, more empathic, more courageous, more consistent, more loving ..? The list of possibilities goes on and on, depending upon the things you hold most dear.

Why not take a moment, now, to recall all the values by which you would like to live. Then look at your list and choose the top one or two you would most like to guide your life in the coming year.

Once you have chosen these core values, allow yourself time to consider how they would look, acted out in your day-to-day life. What, exactly, do you want to re-dedicate yourself to doing or being? What baby steps might you want to take toward strengthening the expression of these values in your life?  The answers to these questions will become your intentions for the New Year.

We know that rituals can help to solidify, strengthen and sustain our intentions, so you might like to go on to create a simple ritual to formalize your re-dedication to living by your values. One such ritual might be to:

1.  Find a quiet space

2.  Light a candle

3.  Notice the pattern of your breathing for a few minutes and then imagine your chosen values filling and strengthening you on the in-breath and pouring out into the world on the out-breath

4. After you've been sitting with your breath and values for sufficient time, make a positive verbal and written re-dedication of your intentions for this new year. Keep the paper close at hand in the days ahead as a reminder to act congruently with your values.

And as a way of following through with your New Year's re-dedication, you might also begin to  briefly ask yourself the following questions at the end of the day:

1.  Where were my actions in line with my values today?  Where were they not?

2.  Where they were not, how might I adjust things tomorrow?

3.  What more can I do, in baby steps,  to bring (your chosen values) more fully into the world?

(Now, being a human being, don't expect yourself to be able to  act according to your values 100% of the time. When you  mess up, just gently forgive yourself, apologize where necessary and then begin again.)

Just thinking through a conscious process of re-dedication like this will help you to live a more authentic life in 2020 and to notice more quickly when compassion fatigue, burnout, accumulated grief or moral distress are drawing you away from what matters most to you.

A very Happy 2020 to each of you!

New Year's Rituals ...

Happy New Year, Everyone!

I hope you've had a restful and refreshing holiday season.

I'm just back from visiting my surrogate family in Nanaimo (on Vancouver Island) and it's time, now, to put the holidays to bed and to greet 2015. I have a few rituals I've developed over time that help me to consciously cross the threshold into a new year:

1.  Cleaning Up the Old and Welcoming the New

My first ritual is to tidy away all the holiday decorations and pack the boxes into the crawl space, ready for next year. That always leaves the house looking a little drab and mournful so I've learned to do two things, apart from the usual house cleaning and pine needle collecting, to brighten things up a bit. The first is to wash all the windows and all the curtains, which somehow seems to let in a little more light even on our rainy, grey Vancouver days.

The second thing is to take an early morning drive to Granville Market and splurge on a couple of bouquets of brightly-coloured flowers to replace the sparkle of the holiday lights. What a difference these two simple acts make to my perception of the winter days yet to come. 

2.  Reflective Journalling 

Once the house is back in shape, I like to light a big fire and settle down next to fireplace with a cup of tea and my journal to do some reflective writing about the year ahead. This year, I used as a guide,  Parker J Palmer's, 5 Questions for Crossing the Threshold, based on a poem by Anne Hillman:

We Look With Uncertainty

We look with uncertainty

beyond the old choices for

clear-cut answers

to a softer, more permeable aliveness

which is every moment

at the brink of death;

for something new is being born in us

if we but let it.

We stand at a new doorway,

awaiting that which comes ...

daring to be human creatures,

vulnerable to the beauty of existence.

Learning to love.

• How can I let go of my need for fixed answers in favour of aliveness?
• What is my next challenge in daring to be human?
• How can I open myself to the beauty of nature and human nature?
• Who or what do I need to learn to love next? And next? And next?
• What is the new creation that wants to be born in and through me? 

3.  Choosing a Word (or letting a word choose you) to Guide Your New Year

This last ritual is one I've been using for the past five years. I first learned about it from my friend, Elaine, who read about it in an Abbey of the Arts newsletter. I find it a wonderful way to focus my attention on an area of discovery and growth for the whole of the new year. I've written about the process of "receiving your word" here.

What about you? How do you mark the transition into a new year?

Wishing each of you a New Year filled with hope, promise and possibility,

Jan



(Photo by Janet Ritchey)

   

All Souls Night ...

Have you ever had one of those moments when you've thought, "How could I not have known about that?"? I had one on Wednesday morning when a friend told me she was going to the 8th Annual All Souls Night at Mountain View Cemetery, (Vancouver's only cemetery), on Saturday October 27th.

The 8th Annual All Soul's Night?? I hadn't known there had been a first, and I tend to have a pretty good idea about what's going on in the City. When I got home, I googled the event and found that it is sponsored by the City of Vancouver Department of Parks, Recreation and Culture and is described, thus, in their calendar of events:

Community event. An atmosphere of contemplative beauty with music, warming fires and fragrant teas to comfort the living, and public shrines to remember the dead. 

Candles, flowers, and other materials will be available for the creation of personal memorials.

There will be an opening prayer at sundown. 

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the tradition of All Soul's Day, its origins in European folklore and beliefs are related to the honouring of ancestors, a practice seen throughout the world in events such as China's Ghost Festival, Japan's Bon Festival, and the Mexican Day of the Dead. 

All Souls Day became a formal part of the Western Christian tradition in 998 AD when the Benedictine Abbot of Cluny (a powerful monastery in medieval France) designated it a day of prayer for the souls in purgatory. (As opposed to those already in heaven, for whom prayers were offered on All Saints Day, November 1st.) Over the years, some churches have fused the two days and others, particularly those of the Eastern Orthodox tradition, now celebrate All Souls days at several times during the year.

In Europe, the French decorate the graves of their dead on the jour des morts and the German, Polish and Hungarians leave gifts of flowers and special grave lights at graveyards once a year. The Czechs visit and tidy the graves of relatives on this day and the people of Malta make pilgrimages to graveyards to remember all the dead, not just their relatives.

In other countries, special foods and church services mark the day. For example, in Tirol, special cakes are left out for the dead and the room is kept warm. In Brittany, people kneel at the graves of loved ones and anoint the hollow of the tombstone with holy water and in Brazil people attend mass or visit the cemetery with flowers for the grave.

Regardless the form of these rituals, I think it's the fact of the rituals that matters here. We humans need rituals because they provide opportunities - opportunities to remember loved ones who have died, to tell their stories, to grieve once again with the support of family and community, and to celebrate life. As church and other providers of ritual grow less relevant in the lives of many, I think the City of Vancouver is to be congratulated for creating this opportunity to remember and I hope you will  take advantage of it if you can. I certainly shall.


ps  I received an email today with additional information regarding the Mountain View All Souls celebration.  The celebration actually covers six days:

• October 18  7pm  Orientation and creation of personal shrines
• October 20  1-3pm  Sugar skulls workshop (Registration required)
• October 27  6-10pm  Night for All Souls
• October 28  7pm  Threshold Choir
• October 30  7pm  Screening of film - Forever - about Pere-Lachaise Cemetery in Paris
• November 1  7-9pm  Orkestar Slivovica Balkan Brass band  performs at Vancouver Crematorium and Celebration Hall, with a procession through the shrines to honour the dead.