And, Here We Are Again

. . . at the time in-between, living within that special space between one high-energy, high-expectation time and the next. Whether turning the year-long calendar fills you with celebratory anticipation and hope or uneasy doubt and trepidation, it remains a time when our choices help to shape our pathways into 2025.

This waiting period can provide a special kind of breathing space, a time to consider what could be. It’s intentional time; a slower time, one when I begin by naming and then spreading my hopes out before me to study the larger picture . . . one where I start to make some important decisions.

A visual menu of hopeful and heartfelt choices is the essence, really the foundation, of the Evergreen. I hope you’ll join me in reflecting on its branches; it seems to me that they’re very real building blocks – gracious actions – meant to forge a more peaceful, well-lived new year.

So, for the first time in many years, I’m looking at resolutions within those branches – ones more centered and possible. I’m resolving to intentionally practice compassion, gratitude, love over fear, forgiveness, peace and kindness. I know, it seems like a lot, but there are many days stretching ahead. . . one choice, one practice, one day at a time. And that’s where my mantras come in.

Mantras, short, personalized, intentional statements, are created to be repeated throughout the day to encourage and focus a practice. For example, one Jane mantra will be:

       “Today I choose to find joy in the good, the uncomfortable and the surprises”

Throughout that day I’ll focus on finding joy, maybe in . . . time on the treadmill, watching a child dance, evading an angry driver, looking at snow-covered foothills, cleaning the oven, even forgetting my phone. And, always, in any small miracles that I notice coming my way.

So, Happy New Year, my reading friends. I wish you the power of your most positive choices and the bountiful grace of a new year lived abundantly in love, joy and peace. May it be so for each and every one of you.

With hope,

Jane