Monday, January 5, 2009

We're fools, anyway...

We're fools whether we dance or not, so we may as well dance.
--Japanese proverb

I was very excited to choose a word for 2009 and to share the idea with friends. I ended up inviting several of my women friends to a "Word Share" event last night and had a great time despite a few party snags. I used to host events a lot when I lived with E - we started the great game night trend in our group and always had parties for the holidays. Then we moved into our worst construction nightmare and it was all downhill from there - at any rate, my skills are a little rusty, so I forgot to send out my confirmation/reminder email until the day of the event and freaked out the night before about the food. I had planned to do a raw dinner and the problem was that I wanted to make too much.

My friend had offered to co-host the event at her house, which was perfect since she lives closer to the other guests and her husband was out of town, so I toted over my magazines (for vision boarding), my raw food ingredients and my hopes. I wasn't let down. The four of us that participated had a nice evening together - I managed to make a pretty yummy raw food dinner (sweet potato soup, salad, zucchini hummus with crudites and crackers [the only cooked item!] and apple crisp for dessert) that was enjoyed by all, we all shared our words and how they was meaningful to us, my co-host got white stones for those of us who hadn't made it to Unity Church [the white stone ceremony entails choosing a word and writing it on a sacred white stone from Jerusalem] and we finished three vision boards.

Once I allowed for an "imperfect" event, I really enjoyed the event and would probably say it came out perfectly.

Oh yeah! My word is DANCE. I had gone through several different words, some of which I thought were good for me (like cod liver oil!) and some of which scared me, when I realized that I wanted a word that was fun and active - like active joy. I hadn't figured out the word when I started putting together a wish list for 2009 and every item on the list was dance related - dance lessons, tickets to contemporary dance performances, dancing shoes, etc. It couldn't have been any more clear if it had cha cha'd over my toes!

I'm happy to have remembered this fun and active word and look forward to remembering it in times of stress as well as times of joy. One of my 'tests' for the words I tried on was to imagine myself breathing that word in a confrontational situation where I would usually respond with anger. A few words, like PEACE and CHOOSE, seemed to help, but didn't put a smile on my face like DANCE does. I think remembering that every interaction is a dance and that I have my part to play will really help.

My friends chose the words MINDFUL, SHINE and POWERFUL CLARITY and I wish them the best of those words!

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