As we move through the winter season and start our new year, we naturally find this a time to reflect on where we have been and where we are going. This time is therefore a perfect opportunity to make adjustments and set intentions to create more balance in our lives.
Years ago, a dear friend and spiritual teacher taught me to consider thinking of my life as a wheel, always needing breath and air to keep fully alive, awake and balanced. His suggestion was to take this time of year as an annual time to re-balance ourselves. I took his teachings to heart and began to work with them as a practice.
As with the wheel or tire of our automobile, we must tend to our lives. If we run over a nail or are low on air, we must give attention to the parts that may have been forgotten or neglected. This is similar to setting goals or making resolutions, only the process is deeper and I hold the outcomes more gently, with more curiosity than simply thinking I failed or succeeded.
For me this is much more in alignment with how life is, more grey than black and white. Each year brings us surprises, sometimes they are hard and we have to make unexpected detours and changes, other years we find amazing gifts and opportunities that we could never have imagined on our doorsteps. Gifts that will take us in new directions but gifts that we want to welcome and that may require us to re-calibrate again as it may have affected other areas of our lives.
Over the years these teachings have deepened for me. I have found invaluable the insights I have gained in January and February as I worked to re-balance the parts of my life that had gone flat or need attention over the previous year.
As an art maker and writer the power of this work has naturally found it's way to my studio. I now work with this teaching both visually and in writing with simple collage concepts and writing prompts to stir my imagination and my intuitive knowing of what I might need in the year ahead.
I share my prompts for art and writing in the Winter Art and Writing section of this website. I offer these as a place for you to deepen into and work from as you create your own beautiful, unique and balanced life.