Reflections of a year gone by

This morning a word popped into my head. "Recalibrate". It shuffled in and out of my thoughts. I whispered it. I felt it on my tongue, in my voice. Recalibrate. What does that mean to me? Then it dawned on me. The WORD. You know, the word you choose to represent the life you want to live  for the year. Or is that just something that only I do?

Photo Courtesy of Montrose Colorado Grace Community Church

So I looked in the mirror. I looked into those blue eyes. I looked at the gray hair SCREAMING to be free of hair dye. I looked at the tiny fine lines around my eyes. I looked at my body; a mother's body. One that I have never been able to embrace, that I have never celebrated.  Do you know who I am? Do you know what I am about? Do you know what I represent? These are the questions I have been asking myself for the last month. Questions that have really left me confused, frustrated, fuzzy.
Because I don't even know. I am not in the same space that I was a few years ago. I am not living a life that I had promised myself I would, when I took vows 3 years ago in a sacred space with really amazing people.

But then again I can't be hard on myself. I am living an authentic life. Things have changed. They aren't the same. Life requires a different sort of energy for me to function these days.  I am a mother 4 times over. I spent this entire year learning how to adapt. How to make it work for myself. For my partner, for my children, and for our new baby. A lack of sleep, exhaustion, and no personal space at ALL left me little time to work on ME. I learned to take a small sliver of time, in the wee hours of the night while I was breastfeeding my little one to pray, or to connect to Spirit.

I worked hard this year at building my business. Officiating weddings. Funerals. Teaching classes. Reaching deeper inside myself to pull out strength that I never knew that I had. I dealt with catastrophe. I handled adversity.  I healed some relationships, and let go of others. I learned a lot about myself.

I learned that life is exactly what you make of it. That you can't keep woulda coulda shoulda-ing your life away. That living in the past doesn't make the future any brighter. That trying to foretell the future doesn't help the present to be beautiful. Of course these are all lessons that I thought I had already learned a long time ago. I guess I must of forgotten. How many times must one go through the same lessons?

After living in a very different life these past 3 years, It wasn't until THIS year that noticed how much I had taken a few steps away from the Spiritual aspect of me. Yet I was living and working under the title of a minister. I felt like a fraud. But am I?

No. The "title" is just one of many aspects of who I am. I have just been busy. I didn't create the space to "BE" spiritual. Except that is not true either. I did. In tiny hidden moments. The in breath and the out breath here and there. Singing to my baby the chants and songs I learned from amazing mother archetypes that have blessed my life.


As we near the end of the year every year, I always take the time to reflect on the life I have lived thus far. Did I make a difference? Was I kind to the Earth? Did I learn anything that helps to make me a better person? Did I do ANYTHING right with my kids?
This year, I can answer yes. I did. I can feel good about that.

My goal/objective for this new year is to live in integrity. With myself, with my family, and with those I choose to surround myself with. I choose to surround myself with people who HAVE integrity. Who want to make a difference. Who choose to be positive.

"Recalibrate". This word feels right to me.  It's time to recalibrate my life. I am not sure what that means, but I guess we will find out. May our lessons be gentle, and may this year 2011 bring us joy beyond measure. And so it is. Cheers!