Happy New Year

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Rosh Hashanah begins this evening. To all who observe it, may you have a good and sweet new year.

It's a new moon tonight, which seems appropriate to me.

I was thinking about Newness, and the need for clearing out old patterns to make way for the new. Stuff that came up (in no particular order):

• I began a new course of Kundalini Yoga last weekend which will take me to mid-December. I've not been doing Shiva Nata and Kundalini Yoga daily, though I've been doing it here and there and actively missing it on days I don't. My bodymind is pulling this newish habit into being instead of kicking against it. I have abandoned calling it a reward or pampering, and now call it basic self-care (like drinking water, eating food, sleeping), and it has also hit me that they can also be devotional acts. The parents insist that I have lost weight over the past month

• We're Home Owners. It's sinking in

• I have decided to stop scheduling "cleaning" and "housework". From now on, I am scheduling healing and house blessing rituals. Gardening will become a land blessing ritual

• I've managed to maintain my decision to stop using the names of body parts or bodily functions as derogatory descriptions or as "swear" words. OK, I've slipped a couple of times, though I caught myself immediately. I find that I notice other people doing it far more now than I did before. It had been a concern of mine for some time that UK and US culture fosters a real discomfort with our bodies, and that this was expressed verbally through "swearing". I feel that this temporary refraining has been good for me as a way of honouring all our bodies, and I'm making it permanent. I have no problems using "swear" words to describe body parts or functions in a matter of fact, happy, healthy context - I just don't use them as swear words with negative connotations any more, and it is working well for me

• I have signed up for NaNoWriMo. I have no plot, no characters, no direction. My father told me (in vino veritas) that I NEED to write. It struck me that I really do NEED to - the act of creation would be good for me and help me to think more creatively about the business I am putting together. Also, it has been a long, long time since I tried any creative writing. It will be interesting to see how the experience compares to the last time I did any. Last NaNoWriMo I did, I got flu part way through and just couldn't do it. Bah, humbug - nothing shall stop me this year!

• I'm all signed up for free business support for the next 3 years under a government-funded scheme to kick-start new enterprise. The new government is likely to cut the funding, but the old funding is in place for people like me who sign up before that happens to receive the promised ongoing support. I don't get funding, but I do get personalised support from a nice adviser with loads of experience running businesses and helping others set up theirs. He is, thankfully, experienced in working with people providing complementary health care, so is fine with ethical and wacky woo-woo stuff

• The new adult education year starts this month. I love low-cost local education! Next week I begin dressmaking classes at a community centre 5 minutes' walk away. This means the spare room desperately needs organising so I have somewhere to do my "homework"

• Havi Brooks of The Fluent Self is not only very cool, she runs a teleseminar called Habits Detectives, all about identifying your patterns of thought-belief-action. It's free, and it's on 21st September. Hm, let me see: A class on identifying and discarding the junk that makes your life harder than it has to be so that you can welcome in new, happy, healthy patterns that will make your life better. Releasing the old, embracing abundance. On Mabon. For free. Yeah, I signed up

• Jennifer Hofman knows what she's doing. We had a freebie session with her last weekend, and she put organisation into a seasonal context - it clicked (finally), that working with the Wheel of the Year is more than just periodic cleaning frenzies specifically aimed at creating a superficially nice space for one evening of ritual. She's good. I got some really good notes out of the session, and we managed to work harmoniously on 4 specific tasks that made a big difference to T's office. Lots of juicy to incorporate - and definite echoes of the lovely purpletigron 's permaculturing

• The big astrological Let's Beat Everyone Round The Head events that thedeathrockgrl drew to my attention come to a close this month. It's been like a root canal. I am now up for the mushy comfort food and sci-fi. Fortunately, the people who know about this stuff say that October, November and December are highly creative, expansive months. And then next year happens

It all seems to break down to mindfulness, conscious living, awareness of connections.

And that's plenty to be going on with.