For those who are new here: Every New Year, I try to choose a set of words to use as a compass to orient me in the new year. My previous words have been: breathe and lead with love (2014), trust and focus (2015), listen and flow (2016), space (2017), magic and connection (2018), joyful curiosity (2019), tender belonging (2020), fierce hope/soft resilience (2021), and delightful possibility (2022). Each of these words has helped me think about how I want to show up in the world, and what I want to invite into my life. Each January I reflect on the previous year’s words, and share my thinking about my new words for the year to come.
Looking Back on 2022: To be honest, delight is not the word that I would use to describe this past year, which was one of the hardest years of my life. And while the word possibility was a helpful guide while dealing with all the feelings of job applications, and my hope of a new job was ultimately fulfilled, looking back, the word “possibility” just reminds me about the fact that applying to jobs is exhausting, and finding housing in upstate New York was a pain! And we had a hard, dark Fall.
And yet, I remain grateful for these words. Even if my year did not quite match up to their potential, I still found a lot to delight in: going to the Indiana Sand Dunes with my Queer Nature Students, visiting my best friend Kavita when she and her family were in Vermont, helping a friend and colleague sort through their office library, and being gifted several books.
As has been the case in many of the different places I have lived the last 5 years, I have been able to find home by connecting with the land and landscapes around me, and finding delight in the connections and relationships I can build with the non-human beings around me. Indigo and I have frequently been delighted by our new home, especially the sunsets over the lake, the rolling fields of goldenrod and asters in the Fall, watching the goldfinches, and nuthatches on the sunflowers in the backyard, walking the woods trail behind the elementary school, and discovering new mushrooms on campus.
In her essay “Mushrooms as Companion Species” Anna Tsing writes:
Delight makes an impression: an impression of place. The very excitement of my senses
Read the rest of the essay here: Mushrooms as Companion Species
commits to memory the suite of colours and scents, the angle of the light, the scratching briars, the solid placement of this tree, and the rise of the hill before me. Many times, wandering, I have suddenly remembered every stump and hollow of the spot on which I stood—through the mushrooms I once encountered there…You visit the spot enough, and you know its seasonal flowers and its animal disturbances; you have made a familiar place in the landscape. Familiar places are the beginning of appreciation for multi-species interactions.
Winter has brought new delightful encounters: flocks of crows over snowy fields, ice sculptures along the edge of the lake, icicles on our barn. A couple of weeks ago I took Pippin out, and was recording a voice memo to a friend about my anxiety about the new semester about to start, and heard geese overhead. I looked up and there were thousands and thousands flying over me, and thousands more coming from the East. My anxiety melted away as I looked up in awe at the jagged v-shaped flocks filling the sky.
Moving into 2023: As per usual, in December, I started thinking about the new words for the next year. One night, as Indigo and I snuggled under the fleece blankets that have been a godsend in this cold lake country, we started talking about my 2023 words. I was so exhausted by the end of Fall semester, all I could think about was rest. Deep rest. We talked about words like rest, rejuvenation, restoration. We also pondered words like roots, rootedness, groundedness, connection, establishment, community.
Moving into January, I continued to think about the words healing, and rest. And I spent a lot of time resting, and reading. For a time, I thought about the combination of the words “rest and roots” and I also considered using the words tender belonging again, as my heart felt tender, and I have been seeking a sense of belonging in this new place. However, I have decided not to return to words that I have used before, since I carry those with me anyway, from previous years. And while “rest and roots” would work, I kept searching as they didn’t quite capture the sense of wonder I was seeking. Somehow, the words “sparks and embers” rose to the forefront of the words that I was tossing around in my head, and just as it has happened in previous years, there was a click, a sense of rightness, and I knew these were my words.
Sparks and embers, these words feel alive, magical, full of potential. They contain some of the sentiments of the other words I was considering, like rest and healing. Sitting by a fire can be restful and healing and meditative. Campfires got me through some lonely early pandemic days and they can be a gathering place for community. Watching sparks drifting up from a campfire into the dark woods above always feels a bit like magic. Sparks and embers can also be a way to think about reincarnation, rebirth, renewal. Sparks are the beginning of a fire. They are small, they don’t always last, and that’s okay, but if tended to, they can become a fire. This year is about a new beginning in so many ways, a new house, new job, new community.
And at the same time, I am trying to nurture old relationships and family ties, keeping the embers of past connections alive. Like sparks, embers make me think about my desire for rest, and healing. Embers glow when a fire has burned down, no longer a frantic blaze but a quiet glowing. Embers are beautiful and soothing, and help keep the body and soul warm. They can last a long time, and they can be used to start a fire up again. One of my favorite memories from this Fall was when Indigo and I went camping in the rain, and watched the raindrops falling on the embers of our campfire. These little spots of darkness would appear on the wood where the raindrops fell in the fire-pit, but they soon faded out under the intense heat of the orange coals. It was a beautiful dance of water and fire, shifting shadows and light.
This winter has been such a dark one for me, I am looking forward to carrying some sparks and embers to brighten the path ahead. I have also been reminding myself that sometimes out of the ashes of a fire, a phoenix rises.
Cover photo of fire by Clay Banks on Unsplash.
The Spaces In Between 