Several years ago, I discovered (via Christine Kane) that there were alternatives to making resolutions.  This was good, because I have a terrible track record with resolutions.

I’m rules-resistant.

If you ask me to do something unpleasant I am instantly a thousand-million times less likely to do it than if you had just left me alone.  I like to feel like I’m giving gifts, not completing obligations.  If you don’t ask me to do it, it’s a gift.  Once you’ve asked (or worse, told) then I hafeta.  Only I donwanna.  Iguana.

(If you, too, are rules-resistant but still have goals you want to approach, supportively and easefully, I can help).

So you can imagine how I respond to resolutions, turning exciting possibilities into RULES OF DOOM.

AT WHICH ONE CAN ONLY FAIL.

ugh.

Right, so fast forward to 2009 or so.  And I discover the idea of a word of the year.  Not at all like a resolution.  More like a conversation.  A theme.  An idea. A focus.  A lens.

I can do that.  In spades.  Metaphor!  It’s almost like poetry!  I like poetry.

I don’t remember what my first word of the year was, but it was kind of amazing  to see what happened.  So I did it again.  And again.

This last year (2011) was prosperity.  Can I tell you?  I never knew how much shit I had around money and prosperity until I made it my word of the year.  Also?  How much was possible.

It’s a learning framework.  It’s not like, “oh, my word is work, now I’m going to have as much work as I want!”  It’s more like, “oh, I wonder what my relationship is to work?  Let’s find out, shall we?  Oh my god, I had no idea THAT was in there!  And my missing sock!”

Now when I go looking for a word of the year, I don’t exactly look, because it’s kind of like rules.  The more stiff I am, the harder and more awkward it gets.  More flexibility = more ease.

So I plant a seed and go on about my business, and the word pops up, and then again, and then again, and then I say, “hi!  looks like you’re it!”

And this year’s word?  Snuck up on me as usual.

magic

Well yes, like magic.  But the word is also magic.

There’s some here-you-see-it-here-you-don’t.

There’s some poof!

There’s also some interesting stuff.  I resisted magic because oy, how much pink-unicorn-i’s-dotted-with-hearts can one year take?

But then I thought…what are the rules you have about magic?

What do you think you know about magic?

And I discovered it’s like pink.

Apparently some part of my brain thinks that magical thinking is a bad thing.

Apparently magic is for Other People.  And it is Not To Be Trusted.

Apparently it is also a gateway of sorts.

And a secret door.

And when I did some drawing and writing about 2012 before I picked my word, apparently this is the year of the Tolkienesque quest, complete with words like wend and tools like wand.  And lots of trees.

So who knows where this is going?

2012.

magic.

here we come!