Happy New Year 2009

My week between Christmas and New Years has been full of rituals to release 2008 and welcome 2009 as I contemplate what this year has been to me, what I have learned. Then last night I danced in 2009 to my husband's music. His creativity and his confidence in it is my inspiration. I would like to be more like him and I am so grateful for him in my life.

Last year I said that my word for 2008 was 'Effort'. But as I contemplate 2008, it is not the word that comes to mind although it was something I pondered and strove towards. The word for last year should have been 'Connection'. It was a year of epic connections and reconnections - a year of completion, of coming full circle.

My family moved alot while I was growing up - from city to city and within cities. There was a lot of dramatic changes - a lot of disconnect as I left old friends, old schools, old parks and neighbourhoods and found new ones. Until I was 9 and we moved to Cranbrook, the longest we generally lived in one place was a year. Some were a bit longer and many were shorter.

In in my life as an adult I have had several dramatic changes and big moves and sometimes it has meant losing touch with people.

This year was a year of reconnections. When my childhood friend from Cranbrook found me through facebook it was an epic reconnection for me. When I returned to Prince George, Smithers and Terrace and the Fraser, Bulkley and Skeena rivers with my children, it was a pilgrammage. A renewed relationship with my mother's only sister who was such a big part of my childhood has been deeply rewarding. And meeting my two favourite aunts from my dad's side of the family at Thanksgiving and reconnecting with my cousin who had been my best friend since birth it was a journey back to myself. And then reconnecting with my Morrow cousins through the death of my cousin David and talking to my 'Uncle' Mel, I was again returned to myself.

There was something cosmic going on - a deep healing, a retrieval of lost pieces, a remembering of myself. Even reflected here on this land I live on as I once again have sheep and chickens that actually lay eggs. My life feels restored.

And as my first born returned from Calgary to live at home for a short time and all my children are once again under my roof, my family was restored and reconnected.

Shortly before Christmas I went to visit my dear friend Bozenka and exchange Christmas gifts along with another gentle, dear friend, Gabriel. Gabriel is an expert in the Enneagram and has studied it for more than 20 years. My knowledge of it is pretty superficial at best. She told me that I was a 6 and went on to tell me the characteristics of a 6 (you can find a description here which describe me eerily well). I could identify with most of what she said - I have always been a non-conformist and I definitely have dramatic issues with authoritarian institutions! But she told me that I lacked confidence. Now most who know me, would never, in my whole life, describe me as lacking confidence. But in her gentle way, she showed me how I lack confidence in my own creativity. I was struck to my core. It is so true and instantly showed me the answer to the conundrum I have often had when it comes to my deepest, truest creativity. This was the final connection of 2008.

And last night as I danced in 2009, I was lost in the music, in my husband's creativity as I danced with abandon. And all of these thoughts swirled around me and there I was dancing with joy as I have danced my whole life and it was all connected in a sparkling trail, weaving and swirling around me.