Give Me A Word

Well, it’s that season when we turn the calendar page and decide we want a north star to guide our ship in the coming year.  I always look to words and to the practice of having a “Word of the Year”.  In years past I have always just sought out one word – mostly by thinking what do I hope to be a guidepost for me in the coming year.  It’s usually an aspirational word – like kindness, or generosity, or patience.  This year I’ve been reading a little book by Christine Valters Paintner, “Give Me A Word”.  In it she talks of not so much seeking out a word as allowing a word or several words to find you, to come to you.  This is not so much a goal or a resolution or even an aspiration.   It is about “listening for what is calling to you”.  It is not so much about thinking as allowing.  She advises that we listen for a word or phrase that “shimmers” for us. 

I began this process as I usually do, by writing possible words on a page in the back of my journal.  Then I tried to resist the urge to “choose one!”  and just allow them to simmer and to keep collecting more.  Which words did I return to?  Which words showed up in other ways in my life?  Which words did my eyes linger on as I looked at the list. Which words excited me? I tried not to rush the process.  To let the words unfold in me. 

In the book Christine offers many ways that you might go about collecting words;  take walks outdoors and ask the natural world for a “wild word”.  Go to poems you love and see if a word appears there.  Consult sacred texts,  your dreams, even possibly an image rather than a word.  Walk a labyrinth and ask for a word.  That is where my word first came to me this year.  It was hard not to grasp for any word that showed up – but rather to just think of it as an interviewing process.  I interviewed several words!  It was fun. 

It is also possible to consider words that you don’t quite understand at first glance.  Some words are challenging and even troublesome, yet they may still be good candidates.  If it appeals to you, look up your word in a dictionary to find all of its meanings – or a thesaurus.  Of course, writing about the words is a good way to see what they hold for you.  Create a haiku of the word, or write a small poem.  Write a prayer to or from this word.  Collage it.  Have fun with the process.  Would LOVE to hear your words!  Please reply to let us know what you’ve come up with or what you are considering!!

Here is a poem of mine – more about the possibilities of a new year than about selecting a word!   I hope 2026 brings us all some peace – and if it doesn’t, I hope we will at least find the ability to roll with what comes.

HIBERNATION

It is that time of year.

Imagine yourself as bear

going into a hole

pulling the door tight

behind you.

But, I myself would not

want to go to sleep

if I found such

a perfectly quiet

solitary place, where

no-one would knock

on the door for four months.

I’d want a heater

and a desk and a ream of paper,

a drawer full of pens.

I would want music

and food to magically appear.

I would want to look out

a window and have my

computer nearby.

I would not make

a very good bear.

But, if I had to,

I would be forced to learn

the very difficult lessons

of boredom, emptiness,

letting go, patience…

nothing to achieve,

no-one to impress,

no duties to tick off the list.

No.  No.  I do not want

to be a bear.

Turns out, I guess,

that I want to be

who I am… Over-busy, charged up,

dancing on the coffee table

with a tambourine

and wondering

what’s on Netflix

and if there are

some potato chips

hiding in the cupboard.

~Penny Hackett-Evans

Making a shrine from an old file folder

I attended a lovely solstice gathering with my mentor, Cynthia Winton-Henry, this afternoon where she led us through a process of creating a sacred shrine for ourselves out of an old file folder.  On the outside, you collage images that represent the year just past.  On the inside, you collage what you want to remember to manifest in the new year.  The inside is a place just for  you to look at and remember your best hopes and intentions.  You might collage words, or a prayer or beautiful images or anything that you want to manifest in the coming year.

In my shrine I pasted a beautiful image of a single candle.  Then I wrote,

            “in the temple of the coming year, I will light a candle to… (and then I listed what I want to honor.).  “I will worship ….”    “I will bow down to…”.  “I will listen to…”.  I will say Amen to…

and I both wrote and collaged the things I want.

Cynthia makes these shrines whenever she is facing something difficult.  She collages on the outside, images and words that represent what the struggle is.  On the inside, she pastes things that will help her in this situation.  She just keeps the file folders.  A space-conscious way to have your life at your fingertips!!!

She played soft music as we worked on our shrines.  I commend the practice to you!  Here is a poem I wrote a while back and it feels related to this process.

IN THE CANDLELIT TEMPLE OF MY HEART

In the candlelit temple

of my heart,

I worship silence

and possibility.

I worship solitude

and simplicity.

It’s a small place,

unadorned.

No priest or goddess,

only quiet

and invitation

to become.

Just to become.

To become

unarguably

who I am.

To gather

the congregation

of my interior life,

welcome them all,

just as they are.

Sit together

with myself

on the floor

of my heart

until someone

starts to dance.

            ~Penny Hackett-Evans

Sending you peace and joy in this holiday week.  

Welcoming Winter

 I recently attended a day long retreat at Spirit Rock which focused on “Welcoming winter” – something most of us are not inclined to do!  The leader, Kate Munding, talked with us about how plants and animals do not resist winter.  They prepare for it, they align to its necessities and they become quiet or dormant.  She invited us to consider immersing ourselves into winter instead of resisting it.  Of course, this involved actually going outside into it!  And, even though I live in California, winters are still uncomfortable, cold and damp at times.  This happened to be one of those gray, cold, damp days.  She said we were going outside exactly BECAUSE it is cold and damp and gray – that is the point!  Can we learn to receive what is offered us?  Can we learn what it has to teach us?

We began by doing a walking meditation outside.  We were to pick a spot and stand and greet the small plot of land where we would take 10 small, slow steps in one direction and then turn and take 10 steps back and repeat.  We were invited to notice very carefully what we observed and sensed.  What did we smell and hear?  How was the cold on our face?   Could we sense each step as we took it.  Could we “kiss the earth with our feet” as Thich Nhat Hahn had recommended. 

I was surprised to see that there were dozens of tiny mushrooms growing in the grass.  And, here in Calif. unlike the rest of the country, winter is the season when things are green.  The air was cold.  But, for perhaps the first time ever, I experienced it as “embracing” and I welcomed it!  She encouraged us in our walking meditation to take “full body breaths” – to feel that your whole body is breathing – each pore pulling in the cold crisp air, and exhaling it throughout our whole body. 

It seems it is possible to experience  the winter as a welcome time.  A time to unfurl, to create sacred, slow space for yourself.  To allow yourself to be called back to yourself. 

I was reminded of the poet Jane Hirshfield’s wonderful poem, “A Cedary Fragrance”  I have heard her the say that all her poetry can be summed up in this one poem of hers. In her 20s, she studied and lived in a Zen monastery. As a monk. In the tradition of Zen, the monks arise at 3:45 AM and proceed to the meditation hall for many hours of meditation, interspersed with time for work and eating and walking etc. The particular monastery where she studied had no electricity. Windows had only screens in summer and plastic over them in winter. She talked about what drew her there was to experience life as simply as possible. She talked about being cold, hungry, uncomfortable, tired, etc. And, that the process of willingly living there for seven years gave her the opportunity to understand what it meant to “practice choosing to want the unwanted.” All of us in our everyday life are given “unwanteds” all the time. We have no choice. People die. We get ill. People get angry at us. Accidents happen. Imagine what it could be like, if we were to truly learn to “practice choosing to make the unwanted wanted.”

A Cedary Fragrance

Even now,

decades after,

I wash my face with cold water—

Not for discipline,

nor memory,

nor the icy, awakening slap,

but to practice choosing

to make the unwanted wanted.

--Jane Hirshfield