Annually I ask for a word for my New Year, usually on New Year’s Day. I follow this prompt from Abbey of the Arts:

“give me a word” we ask – something to nourish me, challenge me, a word I can wrestle with and grow into.  The word which chooses us has the potential to transform us.

What is your word for the year ahead? A word which contains within it a seed of invitation to cross a new threshold in your life?

This year my word came early, unbidden. I saw a collage of words on Abbey of the Arts from a previous year, and one word leapt out at me.

But I didn’t choose it at that moment, wanting to wait until New Year’s Day.

Yet every time I’d think of this exercise, that word would come into my mind. So I finally acquiesced to the word that definitely chose me.

So what is that word, the one that came unbidden, the one that is so persistent?

That word is release.

Actually, that word has been floating around through my 2019 and finally settled enough for me to accept it.

Or maybe I’ve settled enough to accept it.

I know there’s so much I need physically to release—in my physical body and in my physical surroundings.

But perhaps I need to release even more emotionally, mentally, spiritually.

The later years of life necessarily require a paring down. A letting go.

A releasing.

So instead of resisting that letting go, I’m going to embrace my word for 2020 as I progress into my elder years.

It’s actually a kind of comforting word.

Release. Release.

Release.

Ahhh, I can feel myself settling down, letting go, enjoying the flow, floating downstream toward the ocean—through eddy and current.