This past week, I travelled to Asheville, North Carolina for the first meeting of a year-long program for business development and community. I made this year-long commitment of time, resources, and energy both to learn as well as to engage a community to benefit from vs continuing to work solo in the creative work of a business. And while my logical mind is always happy to deliver the "why nots" of a different choice in my life, much of the joy and satisfaction in my life has come through saying "yes!" to Life's invitations to engage the unknown and often "impractical".

I came back from Asheville reminded once again of both the need for adventure in our lives scheduled so full of roles and responsibilities, as well as our need for strong, healthy, and positive community.....community that gifts us with support as well as offering a loving mirror in which to view what we alone cannot see (and w/o seeing, cannot make different). The Greek and Latin meaning of the word "idiot" is "one who insists on only privacy and thus is ignorant" for even way back then, there was clarity on the need for community in a life healthy. Community, the Greeks believed, satisfied the need we have of each other for seeing both the angel and the devil that rests on each of our shoulders.

We all are part of community through relationships, roles, or work-and- belonging is not the same as engaging in healthy community in a pro-active and conscious manner. In this time of great change and human imperatives, it is critical we receive the benefits of healthy community. A community can be as small as two or as many as several; what is important is engaging each other for our goals and intentions through community. We alone cannot see what prevents our dreams and creating different choices; in a community of at least one other, and through calling upon the grace and power of the Unknown, there is nothing we can not transform or create!

Happy New Year! January is a month fresh and new, with possibilities endless and offerings a-plenty, along with some lingering of what is left over from the year past. Each month has it's unique energy and opportunity and one of January's is to honor the old and claim the new. And so I have come to a ritual I engage in the early weeks of January-to remember and honor the chapter of my story created the year before for clarity in engaging the year new.

“Those who do not know their history are bound to repeat it” is a saying cautioning us to not go through our days simply as a series of days spent checking things off our to-do lists.....our living is much more precious and powerful than that. Taking an hour or two to write about the last 12 months of your life will surprise you in ways important for living this gift of the next year of your life. It will offer you an opportunity to truly cherish your living and to recalibrate.... for how you meet what challenges you, what sorrows may be calling for more tending, and where renewed focus on what is precious to you will serve your happiness and fulfillment.

And so, this new year of your life, what do you choose to give your precious time and energy to? What dreams and desires will you pick up to grow with your innate creativity and which ones will you let go of....remaining seeds to plant another year or to be let go for becoming compost that enriches what is planted? Honor what you choose for your life, for your choices have impact beyond your knowing, your presence has the power to inspire and uplift, and expressing your love creates miracles.