The moment a woman comes home to herself, the moment she knows she has become a person of influence, an artist of her life, a sculptor of her universe, a person with rights and responsibilities who is respected and recognized, the resurrection of the world begins. ~Sister Chittister
As I pondered today’s prompt, “A word or phrase that encapsulates your year”, a flurry of words swirled into my awareness.
Autonomy
Sovereignty
Personhood
Responsibility
Inner-Authority
Value
Self-worth
None of these captured this year – they merely helped point to a feeling of how the turning of the days of 2009 have shifted my consciousness. They brought me to here, this moment, while helping me to distill and encapsulate the unfolding of my life over these 365 days.
Looking back, I can now see how this year has been about learning the power of choice. All these words point to the opportunity that exists in each moment to choose what the still voice within asks of me, rather than succumb to the status quo, the conventional ‘wisdom’ of our culture, that right now, doesn’t look so wise at all.
I have come to understand just how seductive this status quo is. But over the days of this year, this voice within has become louder and more insistent. At times, I have wanted to run away from this voice within, but there is no peace out there. The only peace I am finding is not really peace at all. The peace is in surrendering to this that compels me with insistence, burning, and longing. It is here that I must jump. Jump into the blackness that is the unknown depths of my heart. My body. My soul. That is all that is here.
Truth, my word for 2009.
This post is part of Gwen Bell’s Best of 2009 Blog Challenge
Day 17? Word or phrase. A word that encapsulates your year. “2009 was _____.”
Whew! What honesty. And I love your word choice. I definitely should have included it on my list! I’m hoping for gentle truths in 2010 rather than the slam-you-into-a-wall kind that seemed to permeate this year.
Julie – AGAIN you rocked me to the core with a Challenge post! Of course my word will be somewhat different (not sure what it will be tho) since we’re different people – but I “get” this.
The realization that “The only peace I am finding is not really peace at all” has been running thru my life too – with the same effect — drawing me inward (in a good way, not into isolation)…
I can visualize you jumping into the blackness – shining like a diamond. Thanks again!
Sigh. Reading your post felt like coming home to myself. Thank you for writing such intensely powerful, honest words.
it is like coming home to self to read your words. i agree wholeheartedly: there is no peace in status quo (or as i call it: homogenization), only in listening and heeding that special “little” voice. yes, that’s the voice of peace. absolutely.
Emma – Yes. Truth on your list of ‘T’s. I hope for gentle truths for you in 2010, too.
Karen – ‘rocked me to the core’ – lovely. What better place to be than the core, free of all that binds us. Beautiful that you are drawing inward. We’ll meet there.
Alana – You are welcome. The words just come, don’t they? The words draw me home to myself, too.
Jeanne – Yes, coming home to self. I know there is a universality to our selfness. We can feel it as we read words that come from that other place. As I wrote to Alana, the words I wrote, when I re-read them, bring me home to myself. It’s as if they were just written through me, and I get to be the recipient as well.
Thank you, you beautiful women, for writing your experience here. It brings the writing full circle for me. I very much value this connection in this way.