...and a Workable New Year!

Whew! We made it to 2012.

2011 was a good year. I guess I gauge a good year by what I have learned. Sometimes the lessons are very uncomfortable, sometimes ironic, or humbling, and they are frequently funny. I would say that 2011 was a big learning year for me in terms of "wisdom downloads" or A-ha moments that took hold. That's good. Always preferable to be a little wiser than not.

I have been working with my 2012  "one word resolution" for quite a while now, so it isn't really a New Years resolution, but I am sticking with it anyway. "Workable", that's my word. I have road tested it for quite a while now and it's a good one. Not too esoteric or hard to remember. "Workable" is, well, workable.

I got it from dear, wise Pema Chodron who got it from her teacher Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, so it definitely has legitimate street cred as Buddhist practice goes. And, really, what more does one need in any situation, in any moment? Solutions or happy endings are elusive and not guaranteed, E V E R, so the best we can do is work with what we've been given. It is amazing how something that seems overwhelming or intolerable, even happily ecstatic, can be put into perspective when you step back a millisecond and simply say, "I can work with this. Right now, this is workable."  It is both empowering and surrendering in one word. I may not be able to change all of this but I have it within my ability and intelligence and experience and innate wisdom to work with my little piece, and in working I move forward.

Workable.

Today, the tree comes down, the glitter and glamor of the Holidays gets packed away until next December.
It was a beautiful holiday this year-or last year, now, and the glow of it will warm us going forward.

The Bluebird residents put on their morning show. They are around all year now, living in a little commune in the back box. Such a delight to see the flashes of cerulean going in and out of the box, or seeing three or four of them, feathers plumped up against the cold, sitting like chubby jewels on the fence. So sweet.

May you all have a very wise and workable 2012. Namaste!