Sunday, January 25, 2009

Signs of Spring


I spend the entire month of January dreaming about what I want to grow in the New Year, and doing a process of sorting those dreams into themes and goals. This year I'm sharing that process with the students in my New Year Dreams class.

I'm still in the thick of it, generating lots of ideas. Launching an online magazine. Writing a historical novel. Writing essays about plants in the city. Promoting my Slow Time book to coaches and writers. Sponsoring week-long Slow Time retreats. Contributing to Wikipedia, Library Thing. Joining Facebook. Teaching a year-long Slow Time class. The new ideas keep springing forth.

I'm at the point in the process where I need to make choices. It's clearly impossible to do everything. But I'm having a harder time choosing this year than in other years. I like to choose a word for the year that distills my intention for the entire year and this year I'm having trouble with that as well. In previous years, I've picked Fun and Frolic. This year it's something more like Connecting but that's too abstract for me.

Meanwhile I'm enjoying all the signs of spring around me. The red twigs on the maples. The green blades of tulips kniving through the dark soil. The single yellow bloom on the forsythia. The fuzzy buds on the goat willow. I saw my first robin three days ago.

2 comments:

kerrdelune said...

Waverly, I am both envious and admiring - there is still four feet of snow in the garden, and it will be months until any greenery is peeking forth.

Anonymous said...

If you do a Slow Time retreat on the eastern seaboard, I'd come! But could probably only do a long weekend, not a full week.

Love your book, blog, and email blasts. Thanks for all.

~Flaneuse in DC (no blog account)