Sorry, that was a mistake.

Yes I was just going to get on the topic of the new year-
that new horizon, that tricky mirage, that promise of freshness, of newness-that things might get different, get better even.
Now I know it's all hogwash-that I and I can only improve unless I and I are willing to get it together and get going.
I admit I'm thinking a lot about it and feel like I need to make some changes. Tighten a few loose screws and pull up the old socks. Make it count!
Oh gawd.
I have a nauseated stomach today...how am I gonna do that with a nauseated stomach?
Oh wait! Not new year's yet...I still have a couple more days to get my parachute sewed up and my goggles on so I can bound and soar into the next year of my life with all the intenstiy and focus that I've never ever had, suddenly my bonafide companions.
I can't friggin' wait!

Here's something that I read and loved...it's long, so bear with. It touched me in a serioulsly deep way and made tears well up at times. I totally identified with the woman in these lines. It is written by Karen Andes.

A Woman Wakes Up

A woman wakes up to the world,
Awed by the vastness
Outside her and within.
She starts seeing patterns take shape in her life,
Hears rhythms emerge from the mystery,
Feels forces at work around her,
But doubts their presence and herself.
Messages sail forward in the night,
Artfully wrapped in her dreams.
But throughout the day, she loses touch,
Forgets what she knows, who she is,
And what she came to do.

She longs to be let in on the secrets
Of how things work
And to find her missing pieces.
She is driven but doesn't know why
To weave, sculpt, sing and lay down histories,
To make gardens, children, fortunes,
Herself into a work of art.
but where does she begin?

She has bounced between indulgence and strict vows of cleansing,
Flying high and hungry,
Proud of her brief victory over emptiness.
But her dry mouth and brittle-bone weakness,
Cry for sweetness, satisfaction, a compassionate touch,
And all resolutions crumble.
She sees only imperfection, not the rebel soul demanding time.

She studies, reads, takes seminars in self-improvement,
Delivers herself to be analyzed,
Charting her course by stars, instincts, the counsel of others.
Broken pieces begin to mend.
Untamed parts of her personality venture back into the corral.
Old pains that used to leave her flattened, slowly dissappear.
Yet other parts still drift on an open sea...
Anchored to nothing, heading nowhere,
Sometimes anxious to be claimed,
Other times, wanting no structure or direction.

She shares dessert with a friend
Whose insights carry the chill of truth:
"Clear away the noise, shame and fear,
Even the aspirations,
That have pushed you into frenzies" she says.
"Pulled you off in ten directions,
Away from your core.
Your beauty is pulsing under the surface,
Waiting for a safe time to come out.
Simply create a sacred place for it, silence.
Get up before dawn or burn the candle late if you must.
Tap the knowing that comes from the belly-not the brain.
Understand, there is a greater source, gentler than the will, ego or
the need to survive.
Believe, and when you're ready, surrender..."

What does it all mean, she wonders?
What catapulting action? What violent unknown?
What should she do-pull up roots or put them down?
Quit her job and sail off in a new direction? Or follow the course
she's on?
Finally, with nothing but courage to guide her,
She makes a move, a phone call, a declaration,
A promise to honour this voice that says "Be as you are in your
wishes.
Waste no more time"
And so, she jumps,
Feet upended,
Petticoat flying,
With no obvious destination in sight,
Tumbling into her wishes, her body, her every illogical desire,
Falling,
Floating,
Then flying-
Even banking throught the turns
Just as she does in her dreams.

The rhythms she has heard and doubted
Start pounding in her ear.
Patterns take on colour, shadow and dimension.
Words flow in a voice she didn't know she had.
She comes alive in the warm, welcoming interiors of her flesh and
muscle,
Moving on the joy that floods from her heart.
Where she thought she was fixed, she is supple,
Shifting like clay under a new loving touch.

But every day there is that risk of separation,
Of losing what she's after,
Faltering under the demands of time on her own compulsive desires.
Every day she needs reminders:
A journal full of dreams,
A grounding stone in her pocket,
A silken box of found treasures, others passed by on the street.
A word,
A deep breath,
A belly laugh,
Bare feet in the earth
And friends on a similar journey.

Day after day, she returns to herself for magic
Or the world becomes flat and dry.
Her inner life is lush, private-a hidden garden
She strolls through daily, noting the weeds and wild, blooming
orchids,
The crops she put in last season,
The seedlings that sprouted overnight.
She learns to see without praise or condemnation
And soon finds herself reflected in everything around her-
Even the charred half of a pine tree, sliced by lightning,
Rotting on the forest floor, now a home to ants and beetles
With its' good side standing strong, spitting out pine cones and
oozing sap.

A strange transformation has taken place.
What brings pleasure is not a bauble or the promise of a reward but
the work itslef.
Her treasures are the tiniest details:
A warm teacup cradled in both hands,
the rising sun,
The scent of jasmine,
The steady engine of strength that purrs inside her,
Roosters breaking the silence,
Though she has been awake for hours.