by jove, i've got it: 2012 is the Year of ...

Apparently it's not enough to lay out a two-page Chart for each new year.  Maybe it used to be enough, but then it growed.  A few years ago a theme emerged when I reviewed all the items in each labeled section.  Then, thanks to Laura Christensen, the Chart grew a sutra, too, a short easily-memorized phrase that summed it all up for me, that when repeated would bring me back, in an instant, to the whole point of it all. So, last year's pithy little sutra, summing up The Year of Discernment, was Say No, Say Yes.  Easy-peasy and kept me on point.  So a two-page Chart and a theme and a sutra.

But now it seems the year has grown a goddess, too, something I was completely not expecting, something I would have resisted had I had the opportunity.

Two days ago, after days of working on this year's plans, thinking and waiting and watching it all take form, suddenly a realization bonked me frying pan-style on the head, leaving me like a cartoon, little spinny wheels in place of my eyes, stars dancing over my head. Boing-oing-oing.  I was in the woods, hiking with Mr Burns, in that place where I do my best thinking, surrounded by all that green and texture and the sounds of squirrels chattering in the trees.  Something clicked.  Oooooh, that's what that's all about?

Listen: if you think years of practicing yoga doesn't change you, you're mistaken.  It gets inside you and does its thing even when you're unaware of it, and then shows itself in unexpected and delightful ways. That's what makes it seem like magic.  For reals.

So, suddenly two days ago the lightbulb went on and I realized that I was entering Year Three of a three-year cycle.  I had absolutely no idea I was in a three-year cycle, but as soon as I knew what the theme of this year was going to be, then I remembered the Navaratri workshop with Douglas Brooks and Sianna Sherman last September, and boy oh boy, did it all fall into place.  [Navaratri is a 9-day Hindu festival dedicated, three days each, to the goddesses Kali/Durga, Lakshmi and Saraswati, really one goddess fractalized into three, three ways of looking at reality, three stories that star you and me.]

Kind of spooky.  Check it out.

2010: Durga

2010 was the year of Durga for me, my self-proclaimed Year of Intention. I stuck a big image of her on my red Moleskin and carried her everywhere I went, riding her tiger, wielding her weapons to cut down obstacles and bullshit in my path, to free myself at last from a situation I had been stuck in too long.  It was a powerful and ferocious year, in which I said Yes to so much.  By the end I was exhausted, but also jubilant: I had found the courage to give up safety for something more beautiful.  And yes, I was exhausted, bone-tired and ready for the big change I'd created for myself, to a simpler, less crazy life.

2011: Lakshmi

2011 was for me, as above, the Year of Discernment.  My notebook bore the image of my favorite animal, the wolverine, symbol of wildness and innate strength, my signifier to myself that there was no more need to wield a bristling bundle of weapons 'cause I had it all built in.  All I had to do now, now that I'd cut the head off the demon, was get clear.  Where would I draw the lines?  Where would I devote my time, my energy, my passion?  Until two mornings ago, I hadn't thought of Lakshmi ever in connection to that year, because I hadn't realized yet the final piece, the theme for 2012.  But once 2012 popped into my head, I knew it.  I returned to my notes, I saw these words and breathed, "Lakshmi invites you to the greatness of your creative potential, to turn your klesas [wounds] into lakshmis [boons]." It was her all along -- the year in which I realized with a jolt that I am a creative person trapped in a barely-creative profession, the year I grew my writing, the year in which I simplified everything, eliminated everything unnecessary, washed away everything until only gleaming little nuggets were left in the pan.  And with these in hand, I step into 2012.

2012: Saraswati

In all my musings, my dreaming of the year and my constant interviewing of Joe, getting his input on our shared plans, asking him about his own goals and my own, what came up over and over again as an overarching theme for this year for me as for him is "making things nice, making things beautiful."  While it may seem like fixing up the office at the shop or upgrading the website or finally getting a cushion for the window seat at home are disparate To Do items, they all support a general theme of shri, or beauty, of making our lives more beautiful.    They share something essential with my goal of stepping more fully into my writing this year -- more self-expression this year, in short: more art.  And if it was intention and Durga in 2010, and discernment and Lakshmi in 2011, then boom, if it's shri then it's got to Saraswati in 2012-- and getting down to the business of knowing what our lives are for and making them as beautiful an expression of who we are as we can.  

2012: The Year of Shri!

With so much gratitude to all my teachers, to my sister and Yogateau, and to the countless friends who make my world shine with joy: get ready, this year is going to be SO good!  

The Sutra, you ask? 

Shri. It. Up!

Durga is my homegirl

Probably because it’s Year of the Tiger, this has been a Durga year for me.  I’ve been living with her image from the start, her picture on the front of my notebook and in front of my eyes every time I take it out to scribble an idea, take some more notes.

Year of the Tiger is my year, anyway.  Born in January 1963, I got in at the tail-end J of Year of the Tiger 1962.  And naturally, I have a tiger-thing, have long dreamed of visiting Ranthambore or some other tiger park in India before my demise.  And that there was a tiger painted on the backdrop of the 7-day long Immersion and workshops with John Friend in SF in February, helped seal the image in.

But more than just the tiger, it really has been about Durga  all year for me.  Every time I saw her now-peeling image on my notebook, she reminded me to wield all those weapons in defense of what’s true and right, for me.  I thought about the work of cutting what’s unnecessary, mustered the ferocity to stay on track.

And believe me, you need all those arms and all those weapons.

I’m still reflecting on everything that happened this year.  Durga served me well.  I am really grateful, humbled and happy and satisfied with how much everything has evolved in one year.  And aware of how much work it was to maintain that degree of sustained focus.

And since we’re here, at the end of 2010, it’s time for 2011 notebook and 2011 goals.   Which means pretty soon Durga and the red Moleskin notebook she adorns will be heading into the cabinet soon to sleep with 2009 and prior yeas.

Thanks to this year’s experience,  I realize that the work of setting a course for the year gets bigger every year. It used to be coming up with New Year's resolutions. Then it became for me a list of goals, in discrete categories, 'cause that's how my mind works. Then, thanks to yoga, I added in the creation of a sutra for the coming year, a word or phrase or couple of lines, to help keep on course, a distillation, concentration of the idea of the year.

And now I see that there's another level, too. There's the image, the visual to help keep me on track, to provide a non-verbal heads-up every single day.

So excited to dream about 2011, to consider where I want this path to take me over the coming 12 months.  Year of the Rabbit, here we come!