Where I've been, where I want to be
As I think back over the past year, the feeling I have is something like the Hanged Man tarot card. The Hanged Man carries the meanings of sacrifice, letting go, surrendering, patience, waiting. Robin Wood says, "This card means suspense, change, looking at things from another viewpoint."
So much of my time and energy this past year have gone toward healing my back. Partly because I kept thinking I would get better within a few months, I have been very focused on self-healing, at times pushing other needs to the side. But time and again this year I have had to surrender to my body's healing timetable.
I think I have finally accepted that this is not a short-term healing process, and indeed, because of the arthritis, will take continual care for the rest of my life. While I believe I will be able to come to a place of living mostly pain free, I will always have to be careful not to overreach my body's limits.
I have learned a lot about my body's needs this year. Now it is time to put this knowledge to use. So, for the coming year, I would like to manifest the energy of the Temperance card: harmony, balance, equilibrium, synthesis. Temperance contains the sense of the the unification of physical and spiritual needs, and it is this in particular that I feel the need to focus on. I am good at doing that when I can do yoga or qigong, but during times when I have to refrain from those practices because my back pain is flaring up or I need to focus on more western types of exercise (such as physical therapy), my spiritual practice suffers. There have even been times this year when I have been too sore to sit for meditation, so I haven't even had that.
It's not that I don't know how to make a spiritual practice work during those times; I know plenty of visualizations I could integrate into physical activities. But generally my habit has been to either do them while sitting, or within the framework of a physical practice like yoga. At other times my spiritual practice can easily fall by the wayside.
So, my first New Year's Resolution:
Better integrate my spiritual and physical practices, no matter my body's current level of physical health.
Also, as I read back over my LiveJournal entries for the past year, I seem to have written about just a few major topics: healing my back and rfunk's and my wedding and trip to Colorado. Seems I was a pretty boring journaler last year. I'm surprised I haven't bored you all into defriending me by now!
This leads me to my second resolution:
Be a more interesting blogger! That means I will have to write more about what else is going on in my life, as well as seek out a few new experiences to right about. Ah...a challenge!
Edit: I left one out: Develop the habit of saying, "It's all part of the adventure!" Whatever happens, when things go wrong, get annoying or don't go my way, just remember: it's all part of the adventure!
So much of my time and energy this past year have gone toward healing my back. Partly because I kept thinking I would get better within a few months, I have been very focused on self-healing, at times pushing other needs to the side. But time and again this year I have had to surrender to my body's healing timetable.
I think I have finally accepted that this is not a short-term healing process, and indeed, because of the arthritis, will take continual care for the rest of my life. While I believe I will be able to come to a place of living mostly pain free, I will always have to be careful not to overreach my body's limits.
I have learned a lot about my body's needs this year. Now it is time to put this knowledge to use. So, for the coming year, I would like to manifest the energy of the Temperance card: harmony, balance, equilibrium, synthesis. Temperance contains the sense of the the unification of physical and spiritual needs, and it is this in particular that I feel the need to focus on. I am good at doing that when I can do yoga or qigong, but during times when I have to refrain from those practices because my back pain is flaring up or I need to focus on more western types of exercise (such as physical therapy), my spiritual practice suffers. There have even been times this year when I have been too sore to sit for meditation, so I haven't even had that.
It's not that I don't know how to make a spiritual practice work during those times; I know plenty of visualizations I could integrate into physical activities. But generally my habit has been to either do them while sitting, or within the framework of a physical practice like yoga. At other times my spiritual practice can easily fall by the wayside.
So, my first New Year's Resolution:
Better integrate my spiritual and physical practices, no matter my body's current level of physical health.
Also, as I read back over my LiveJournal entries for the past year, I seem to have written about just a few major topics: healing my back and rfunk's and my wedding and trip to Colorado. Seems I was a pretty boring journaler last year. I'm surprised I haven't bored you all into defriending me by now!
This leads me to my second resolution:
Be a more interesting blogger! That means I will have to write more about what else is going on in my life, as well as seek out a few new experiences to right about. Ah...a challenge!
Edit: I left one out: Develop the habit of saying, "It's all part of the adventure!" Whatever happens, when things go wrong, get annoying or don't go my way, just remember: it's all part of the adventure!