Red Cedar

It’s hard to separate a moment out of 365 days, 8760 hours,525 600 minutes – because most of our lives are lived so unconsciously, on automatic pilot. Even the moments that should be precious and life-affirming go by in a blur because we are overwhelmed or distracted by everything else going on around us. As part of meditative practice, mind-focusing work, we are taught instead to slow ourselves down and bring awareness to every moment, even the most mundane, in order to truly notice our aliveness.

I have to admit, I’m horrible at slowing down, of being conscious of what is truly happening around and in me because I am so often caught up in my head to the degree that my eye doesn’t see and my ears don’t hear. And I recognize the problem in that we miss alot when we are forever living forward or backward, the moments that are truly important only recognized in hindsight when our memories cast them in the haze of reflection.

But there are times that I catch myself, remind myself to take in the moment that is happening because it is so grand and important – and one of those times this year was the moment of “I do” with Brian standing on the rocky ledge of Point No Point. On automatic pilot through much of the repeated vows, I managed to hold myself up for a minute to look deeply into Brian’s eyes, and hear the words as they came from my mouth promising my love undying, and my commitment fast. I took in the smile on his face, the wind caressing my neck where my hair was fastened up, the sea the provided a backdrop of waves beating against the lap of the cove. I took in the overcast sky like a comfort above me, and the salt on my lips as my mouth formed the words. And I filled up in that moment with the connection being made with this other person, and the world in which we stood so trustingly on a precipice above kilometres of ocean stretched out as far as we could see.

And then I pulled all that in, the memory like a kite straining to break off, and kept it close beside me as we walked across the little red bridge and through the muddy forest to where our wedding fire was lit. And even now, two and a half months later, my joy at being alive for that moment, for that day – returns to me in the most sterile of places.

Interconnection. That’s the one word I would use to sum up the last year even though I have experienced at least two fairly major ruptures in my organizational and personal affiliations. For the first time in many years, I feel like I am on my right path for discovering new community alliances, sharing skills, and working through what I want and need from friends and allies. I have participated not only in my union in the past year, but continued in my writing circle, joined our neighbourhood group, championed a boulevard gardening project that received grant funding, written two articles for publication in the activist press, gardened the hell out of my backyard, hosted many dinner and wedding parties, and started down the path of apiary studies. All with the goal of connecting to myself connecting to positive social and ecological goals. Even my organizational ruptures are about finding a better place for myself to work from as opposed to retreating or giving up. Most of all, I have formalized my partnership with Brian through marriage, as we have continued to build a world of support and love in our home – and this is about as interconnected as it gets.

For next year, I would like my word to be proficiency, as I have a number of areas in my life – writing, gardening, sewing – where I would like to deepen my skills. This means re-dedicating myself to the practice of each of these things, as much as I currently enjoy the dribs and drabs of process I engage in. I don’t feel the need for greatness in any area, but I do crave high levels of competence.

So I’ve never done Reverb before but I noticed it on another friend’s blog last week when I was too busy to think, let alone blog, and I like the idea. Thirty-one days until the new year, 31 days of reflections to make. With everything that’s happened in the last year, reflection is something I welcome… problem is, I’m already 5 days behind so I’ve got some catching up to do. And I would normally just skip the first five prompts…. except I really want to answer them! So it goes. I’m going to see what I can do about getting the first ones done, even if they are very brief.