Flower of March: Daffodil

Daffadowndilly has come to town
In a yellow petticoat and a green gown.

I always think of the daffodil as the flower for the month of March. That’s because I always look for the daffodils on the first of March, and for the past ten years, with one exception, I have always found them in bloom by this date in Seattle.  Lucky for me since I want to wear a daffodil on March 1st  to show my allegiance to Wales (thanks to my ancestress, Nesta, the mother of the first Fitzgerald, who flourished around 1100).

The daffodil is the national flower of Wales which is why you should wear it on March 1, the feast day of St. David, the patron saint of Wales. Or you can eat a leek on this day and become an honorary Welshman (Cymru as the Welsh would say it). I try to do both.

The David Morgan site in its entry for St David’s Day
http://www.davidmorgan.com/stdavid.html
implies that the daffodil was imposed as a symbol of Wales by the English who wanted to downplay the political implications of the leek (worn by wild Welshmen in battle with the Saxons). Julie Ardery’s article at the wonderful Human Flower Project web site
http://humanflowerproject.com/index.php/weblog/comments/the_leek_and_the_daffodil/
mentions David Lloyd George, the Prime Minister of Britain during World War I, as the person who popularized this custom but he was Welsh himself so it seems more likely he was bringing to the forefront an authentic Welsh custom. The creators of the French Revolutionary calendar must have known of the association of the daffodil with St David’s Day back in 1792 when they designed the calendar and assigned the “narcisse” to March 1 (the 11th day of Ventose, or Windy). (The daffodil appears later in March on the 8th of Germinal)

Daffodil is a common name for a narcissus. It may be derived from the plant name asphodel, known to the Romans. Pliny wrote that it grew on the banks of the Acheron, delighting the spirits of the dead. The Romans planted it on tombs, perhaps because it was said to grow in the Elysian Fields. It was the sight of a daffodil that lured Persephone into the Underworld.

Perhaps it is the way they droop that evokes death. It also gave rise to the myth of the beautiful boy, Narcissus, who fell in love with his own reflection. I will let my favorite garden writer, Paghat, tell you all about the Narcissus myth and the secret rites of Echo practiced during the Eleusinian mysteries
http://www.paghat.com/narcissusmyth1.html

The narcissus common in Greece, Narcissus tazetta, is called Little Tear Drops. In Germany, daffodils are called Osterglocken, Easter bells. They are also called Lent Lilies in England. They are favorite decorations for Easter tables, for Nawruz (Persian new year) celebrations and for Chinese New Year.

Gabi Grieve of the World Kigo database
http://europasaijiki.blogspot.com/2005/04/daffodil-and-narcissus.html
mentions a new holiday in Ireland, Daffodil Day, March 24 which is sponsored by the Irish Cancer Society. Resonating as it does with connotations of both death and hope, the daffodil is used as a symbol by cancer societies around the world.

All daffodils have a central trumpet-shaped corona surrounded by a ring of petals. The traditional color is yellow but hybridizers have bred all sorts of fanciful variations, including daffodils with multiple layers of petals or frilled petals and daffodils with contrasting coronas and petals, or elongated or compressed coronas.

Daffodils come from the Mediterranean but there is one particular daffodil, Narcissus obvallaris, which grows only in a small area around Tenby in Wales. The Narcissus pseudonarcissus is also native to Wales. Julie Ardery writes about the way the winter daffodils bloom in January at Quarrelton in Wales, possibly due to the fires still smoldering beneath the surface in the abandoned tunnels of the mines there:
http://humanflowerproject.com/index.php/weblog/comments/daffodils_for_the_miners/
She also describes how Welsh scientists are cultivating daffodils because they contain galanthamine, which is used in the treatment of Alzheimers.
http://humanflowerproject.com/index.php/weblog/comments/the_mind_of_a_daffodil/

However don’t try this at home. Daffodil bulbs are poisonous. Mrs. Grieve says they are a powerful emetic. Even the flowers are slightly poisonous. However, both bulbs and petals have been used medicinally. The Arabs used an oil of daffodil to cure baldness and as an aphrodisiac.

The oil of Narcissus jonquilla and Narcissus Campernella are used to make a sweet-smelling oil used in perfumes, but Mrs. Grieve warns against being in a closed room as the Narcissus poeticus, or Poet’s Narcissus, as the scent of these daffodils has been known to cause headache and vomiting.

The daffodil is also called the goose leek. In the Isle of Man it is considered unlucky to bring them into the house until the goslings are hatched. In Maine, they say that if you point at a daffodil it will not bloom. And in Wales, if you find the first bloom of the season, you will have more gold than silver this year.

May you find the first bloom of the season.

References:
Wikipedia article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daffodil
Mrs. Grieve’s Modern Herbal:
http://www.botanical.com/botanical/mgmh/n/narcis01.html
Leach, Maria, editor, Funk & Wagnall’s Dictionary of Folklore, Mythology and Legend, Harper & Row 1972

Listening for Lent

You know how much I love Lent. I love how it resonates with the energy of spring, with its encouragement to shed bad habits, to make room for new growth, to channel the power of change.

This year I thought I was going to give up TV (which is what I gave up last year, though I returned to it fairly quickly afterwards). But then I signed up for Christine Valters Paintner’s Lent class at Abbey of the Arts, and realized that instead of giving something up (as I was schooled to do during my Catholic childhood), I was going to acquire a new habit: a daily spiritual practice.

Christine’s class focuses on the Benedictine practice of lectio divina, that is, reading a sacred text each day and allowing it to resonate within (listening with “the ear of the heart,” as Benedict wrote). While reading about this concept in Christine’s book, Lectio Divina, I realized how seldom I really listen (which is probably why my experience of listening to the plants was so profound). I’m usually preparing an answer or adrift in a sea of my own thoughts. And I thought about how deeply the people around me, particularly my daughter, want to be heard. She’s always talking, but probably because no one’s listening. I think she would be shocked, and possibly a little terrified, if she realized I was really listening.

Listening doesn’t mean responding, so I have to curb my desire to be useful and to give advice. If my desire is to fully hear, to seek to understand, to allow my heart to be touched, that’s enough.

So I’m listening for Lent. What are you doing for Lent?

Pagan Lent

First published in 2002 at School of the Seasons.

When I mention the word “Lent” around my pagan friends, a curious thing happens. I watch as their faces go blank, they look away as if to say, “That’s not for me. That’s something Christians do to mortify the flesh.” Certainly this was the flavor of Lent as it was practiced in the late 1950’s when I was attending St. Bridget of Sweden Elementary School in Van Nuys, California. We gave up a favorite food for six weeks and saved our pennies for the “heathen babies.” But since I’ve been studying seasonal celebrations, I realize that the roots of Lent reach far back in time and are deeply aligned with the energy of spring. So I propose taking another look at Lent, its roots and its potential as a spiritual practice.The very name of Lent is synonymous with the season, for it comes from the Anglo-Saxon lenctene, meaning the time when the days lengthen. Lent is the 40 days before Easter. Since Easter always falls on a Sunday, Lent always begins on a Wednesday, Ash Wednesday. During the church services held on Ash Wednesday, we listened to a reading which reminded us that we would die “Ashes to ashes and dust to dust”) and then the priest marked our foreheads with a smudge of dark ash (on the third eye chakra, a place also marked with sacred ash in Hindu devotions).

For the next six weeks we were required to give something up, something which was precious to us, that we would miss, something that would build character, for we would have to struggle against temptation as Christ struggled against temptation in the desert while fasting for 40 days and 40 nights. The 40 days of Lent are a significant period. Forty is a magical number which recurs throughout the Bible (Noah floated in his ark for 40 days and nights, the chosen people wandered in the desert for 40 years, Jonah led the citizens of Nineveh through 40 days of penance). But forty is also a magical number in other ways. I’ve heard that it take six weeks to break a habit (or establish a new routine). Six weeks times seven days equals 42 days, almost exactly the same time period as Lent.

But it’s not just the number of days that are significant but their conjunction with the season. In Chinese medicine, spring is the time of the liver, whose energy is change. Haragano, who teaches Wheel of the Year classes in Seattle, says that treatment centers experience higher success rates in spring than at any other time of the year. She attributes this to the incredible energy for change which courses through the earth at this time, the force that through the green fuse drives the flower, as Dylan Thomas put it. The sap is rising in the trees, which are budding; the green stalks of crocuses and snowdrops are pushing through the frozen ground. There’s an incredible shift happening which — in those parts of the world which are frozen — manifests in the spring thaw, the breaking up of the contraction of winter.

Lent is the time for making auspicious changes. It doesn’t have to be about deprivation, although that pattern is deeply ingrained in me from my Catholic childhood when I usually gave up cookies or candy for Lent. As an adult, I’ve used Lent as an opportunity to experiment with my patterns with other substances. Giving up alcohol for one Lent eventually led to giving up alcohol altogether. Giving up dairy products, however, did not lead to a permanent change, even though I immediately noticed the return of a certain amount of congestion (which I had previously considered normal) when I began eating dairy again at Easter. Two years ago, I gave up coffee entirely (although not caffeine — my consumption of Darjeeling tea shot up in proportion). Again, although I went back to drinking coffee (hey! I do live in Seattle), I weaned myself from daily coffee consumption and now have a latte only once or twice a week. Last year I gave up sugar, probably the most difficult of all. The effect on my energy level was drastic and shocking. The few times I ate sugar (jellybeans at Nawruz, desserts at a Victorian ball), I binged and then felt sick for days afterwards. Now although I’ve put sugar back into my diet, I’m much more sensitive to its effect on my body. I no longer buy cookies or ice cream for late night snacks and I discovered an organic Earl Grey tea that’s so sweet and delicious I can drink it without sugar.

The emphasis on giving up a rich or luxurious food item has deep historical roots. The day before Lent is often called Mardi Gras, which translates as Fat Tuesday, because people gorge on rich, deep-fried foods like doughnuts and pastries on this day. In Russia, the week before Lent is the time of the butter festival when everyone feasts on blinis, pancakes wrapped around fillings. In England, the day before Lent is Pancake Tuesday since pancakes are the food of choice. The recipe for pancakes published in The Compleat Cook in 1671 includes a pint of cream, six new-laid eggs, a pound of sugar and nutmeg or mace. The previous Sunday is Colop Sunday, the last chance to eat collops (chops) before Lent begins. Carnival, another name for the period right before Lent when people splurge on the rich foods and outrageous behavior which will soon be prohibited, comes from Carne (meat) vale (farewell) because Catholics give up eating meat for Lent.

A friend of mine who is a member of a Russian Orthodox church tells me that their restrictions on food during Lent are even more severe than those I experienced in the Roman Catholic church. Lent is like a six-week progressive fast, in which people give up first meat, then a different food item each week, until the week before Easter they are eating only bread and water. This reminded me of the diet I followed (in reverse) the second (but not the last) time I quit smoking. I was following a program outlined by the Seventh Day Adventists which prescribed a strict diet during the first week of not smoking. We were supposed to eat only fruit and fruit juice the first day, then add in vegetables, then grains. Sugar, alcohol and caffeine were all forbidden–triggers for nicotine craving. I was so obsessed with figuring out what I could eat and doing all the preparation involved in preparing fresh fruit and vegetables that I barely missed cigarettes. If you have been considering trying an allergy elimination diet this would be a great time to try it.

If you think about what’s going on in the natural world, these food deprivations make sense. This part of early spring is the most hazardous time of the year for people living close to the earth. The first bitter greens (so prominent a part of spring equinox feasts like Passover and Easter) are just emerging. Fresh eggs, also associated with these feasts, are not yet available; birds are just beginning to nest. The foodstuffs, particularly the salted and smoked meat, that were stored to carry the family through the winter may be giving out. The potatoes and apples left in the cellar are getting soft and of dubious quality. The deprivation of Lent may not be voluntary but a necessity imposed by nature. As Caroline Walker Bynum points out in Holy Feast and Holy Fast, “Fasting is in rhythm with the seasons, scarcity followed by abundance.” By choosing lack, people believed they could induce God to send plenty: rain, harvest and life. As Gregory the Great said, “To fast is to offer God a tithe of the year.”

There is a long tradition of spring purification. Cleansing is part of the action of the tonic herbs of early spring on the body. Also think of spring cleaning. Those who planned to be initiated during the Eleusinian Mysteries in the fall participated in purification ceremonies in the early spring, which included bathing in the sea. When the world is being made anew, we wish to make ourselves new. Yet any change is fraught with danger and difficulty. As a friend of mine said while we were on our way to a ritual, “There is no transformation without change.” Gertud Mueller Nelson in her wonderful book on Catholic ritual comments, “which of us…does not know we must change and fear it, and in that fear come face to face with the mystery of death.” She believes that “conscious engagement of suffering and death forces us to take stock of our gift of life and consider ways of reforming and living our lives more fully and passionately.”

Nelson mentions that a banner displaying the words Vacare Deo (meaning to empty oneself so God could fill one up) was displayed in her childhood home during Lent. Brooke Medicine Eagle assigns the same value to fasting when she describes vision quests in Buffalo Woman Comes Singing.. She writes that when we fast we refrain from taking in on the right side of our experience, thus creating a vacuum in our consciousness. “By our very nature, something else will come in to fill that space.” For Brooke, the vacuum was filled with dreams, visions, clairvoyance, astral travel and revelation, all left-sided events. “The fast,” she writes, “seems to work the same way with all people. It is a brilliant tool for opening ourselves to the Great Mystery and to the Source of Life within our own being.” In discussing how to fast, Brooke Medicine Eagle recommends checking with you“not as a punishment or a sacrifice, but as a joyful way to call upon another part of yourself, a way to awaken to Spirit’s voice within you.” Although you can simply move through a regular day without food, Brooke suggests taking a day off, going to a beautiful spot in nature and creating sacred space there where you can spend your time in meditation or centering. “Whatever holes in your life you fill with food — or anything else you’ve included on your fast — will become very obvious when you begin to do without them.”

I know how powerful this practice can be from my experience with another kind of fast: the week of reading deprivation which is part of the twelve-week program described by Julia Cameron in The Artist’s Way. For reasons similar to those described by Brooke Medicine Eagle, Julia Cameron recommends abstaining from reading for one week. For those of you who get your daily dose of words from NPR, listening to talk radio is also forbidden. “Reading deprivations casts us into our inner silence,” a place where we can “hear our own inner voice, the voice of our artist’s inspiration.”

The effects of reading deprivation have been dramatic for me and my students The first time I did reading deprivation, I got sick. I was indignant and frightened. How could I stay in bed and rest without reading? As a way to soothe my sore throat and get to sleep at night without the soporific of a bedtime novel, I sipped at the lavender brandy I had in my cupboard for medicinal purposes. Since I hadn’t drunk alcohol for several years, I was shocked when I realized that I had replaced my addiction to reading with alcohol. The second time I did reading deprivation, I found myself spending hours obsessively planning: rewriting to-do lists, making ten year plans, elaborating all the tasks necessary to carry out complicated projects. I had never noticed before how much time I spent planning to do things as compared with actually doing them. It was another revelation.

I do reading deprivation every time I teach an Artist’s Way class, which is every spring and autumn, nicely aligning with these transitional seasons. Subsequent experiences have not been so dramatic but they have been gratifying. I now look forward to reading deprivation as an oasis in my life which is crowded with things to read. One time while standing at a bus stop, restless and impatient during a reading deprivation week, I went into the nearby florist’s shop and began sniffing all the flowers, trying to come up with words to describe their various scents. I have done some of my best writing during these weeks, which are also usually times of particularly vivid dreams.

This sort of sensory abundance and sensitivity is one of the rewards of the deprivation or purification process of Lent. Lent begins with the excesses of Carnival. It comes to an end with an outburst of joy and indulgence. The Easter feast is a banquet of rich foods, the bounty of spring. The mood of Easter is one of gaiety and celebration–it derives from a Roman festival in honor of the resurrection of Attis called Hilaria.

If you find it difficult to contemplate giving something up for six weeks, just remember that you can indulge at Easter. Knowing that you are abstaining for only a limited period of time makes exercising restraint easier. Plus you can look forward to the excess of Easter. After six weeks of soy milk lattes the year I gave up dairy, I had my first latte breve (made with real cream) on Easter.

For pagans who don’t want to align with Christian holidays, a more natural time for celebrating Lent would be the six weeks between Candlemas and Spring Equinox. In fact, you might work it into your Candlemas pledge, taking a new name which symbolizes the change you want to make.

I’ve focused on giving up substances, but there are many other kinds of changes you can make. Process addictions like planning, worrying, obsessing about love, watching TV, overeating, overworking, are all good candidates. For instance, if you tend to overwork you might want to set some bottom lines ; no working overtime, no working on weekends, no work phone calls at home. I usually try to make a change in a behavior as well as giving up a substance. One year I gave up criticizing (not an easy task for a Virgo). Another year I gave up nagging.

I’m really looking forward to Lent this year because I already know what I’m giving up: self-deprivation. Mostly through working with The Artist’s Way, I’ve identified a pattern which Julia Cameron calls artistic anorexia which also applies to other areas of my life. I am constantly denying myself simple pleasures with the excuse that I can’t afford them, either financially or in terms of time. Perhaps this is a remnant of m Catholic childhood; certainly it’s a prevailing theme in our Puritan culture. This Lent my commitment is to indulge myself every day.

Pussy Willows

It was a goat willow tree that launched My Year in Flower project back in 2008 when it dropped a spent blossom on my head as I walked past with the dog. At first I thought it was a caterpillar and recoiled in disgust. The sidewalk at my feet was littered with hundreds of little squishy yellow items. And when I looked up, I discovered they came from a spindly tree with bare branches growing close to the sidewalk. And on the lower branches of the tree, I recognized the white fuzzy buds of pussy willows.

Pussy willows had always seemed mythical to me. They didn’t grow wild in Southern California. We only saw them when we went to the Farmers Market in downtown Los Angeles which we only did when relatives came to visit. The pussy willow branches came wrapped in plastic. When brought home and put in vases, they remained frozen in their fuzzy bud stage.

But on this tree, I saw all the stages in their development. First, tender milk-white buds. Bristling green catkins came next, which were gradually frosted with yellow pollen before dropping from the tree to litter the sidewalk in soggy clumps like so many used condoms. And, as I thought about it, I realized this tree was in a constant wave of orgasm as each little flower puffed out its pollen and then collapsed, spent.

It amazed me that I had walked past this tree for years (I’ve lived in my neighborhood for 14 years) and never noticed this miraculous transformation. (To give me credit, this whole cycle is over in one month; for the rest of the year, the tree is rather boring:either bare branches or green leaves.)

The goat willow tree surprised me again this year when I realized there is another stage in its development. Before the milky white buds appear, the ones we think of as pussy willows, they have to push through the brown caps that have protected them through the winter. Right now the sidewalk is covered with those light brown husks, like so many tiny insect shells.

It is only necessary to behold the least fact or phenomenon, however familiar, from a point a hair’s breadth aside from our habitual path or routine, to be overcome, enchanted by its beauty and significance…. To perceive freshly, with fresh senses is to be inspired. Thoreau.

Candlemas Collages

My New Year’s practice is to make a collage that represents the experiences I hope to enjoy in the new year. For the past few years, I’ve been making Soul Collage (R) cards to embody the themes I’ve chosen for the year. Here you can see my three themes for 2010 as works in progress: Refreshment, Sustainability and Sovereignity.

On the other side of the table you get an upside-down view of the collage my friend Janis made.  We love this ritual which we have been sharing for years. We light candles, make wishes, drink tea, nibble on cookies and play with images.

My cards right now are up on the wall in the entry way of my home where they will remind me every time I enter of my themes for the year.

Skunk Cabbage

From Jane Grant in Baltimore, Maryland.

A photo from a hike in the woods along the Gunpowder River in central Maryland on January 18, 2010. In my zone, Skunk Cabbage is due to appear in February, but I found these a bit earlier, poking up through the leaf litter in the otherwise brown, bare woods. A beautiful sign of Spring!

Good Omens

At the end of the week, I went away for a three-week mini-retreat which I created and orchestrated so I could have three friends help me figure out what I am doing with my life during this upcoming year. One was Joanna, my web designer, who inspired me to create the School of the Seasons web site, ten years ago. Another was my friend, Noelle, a talented life coach. And the third was Whitney, who specializes in marketing and development for small businesses.

As I walking to my car, I passed two crows eating a dead rat (or mouse?) that was lying in the road. Seattle was experiencing a sunny spell, with balmy breezes and blue skies. But as I headed north to Bellingham where we met, I watched ribbons of rain streaming down from a dark bank of clouds. I wondered about these omens.

Our three days together were fruitful and nourishing. We stayed at the Fairhaven Village Inn, which was a lovely place to stay. My room had a view of Bellingham Bay and the huge Alaska ferry (in dry dock) and the train going by. We met and talked and went out to eat and talked and made maps and went out to eat and ate chocolate and talked and went out for gelato and talked and made lists and talked and came up with a plan for the year that is both refreshing and sustainable (two of my theme words for this year). I’m not ready to reveal the details (because it’s not completely clear yet) but I should be ready by Spring Equinox.

When I left Bellingham, it was raining. I took a wandering course home, along the coast, and through some lovely farmland. Ahead of me the clouds were dark but I could see golden sun streaming out from behind them. And I passed a field full of white swans (they like to over-winter in the Skagit Valley). That seemed like a good omen.

Here’s a video of trumpeter swans in the Skagit Valley. You can tell why they are called named after trumpets.

Shedding for the New Year

This new year I’ve been feeling really bogged down by all of the clutter in my house. I thought I would get it all cleared out during the week I was off work after Christmas but, of course, that didn’t happen.

I accidentally watched part of an episode of the TV show Hoarders last year. I don’t recommend it for anyone who has any hoarding tendencies–I’ve been horrified ever since at the prospect that I might become one of those old ladies who lives in an apartment with little paths between the stacks of newspapers. But this tendency does run in my family. My Uncle George, who was the family eccentric in my Mom’s family, apparently had an apartment like that (he also had about a quarter of a million dollars in his estate when he died—unfortunately that part of the hoarding gene seems to have passed me by).

It’s hard to launch into the new year when you’re carrying the weight of all that clutter, all those unfinished projects, all those unread magazines, all those unsorted photographs. And I’m noticing this same theme among the participants in my New Year Dreams class.

I’m hoping that this is all due to the backwards influence of Mercury and Mars both being retrograde at the same time. Madeleine Gerwick, the author of the popular Good Timing Guide says not to initiate any new projects until March 20. That might give me enough time to clear and organize my house.

I’m also reading Julie Morganstern’s new book. I’m a big fan of Julie’s work. The four-step system she explains in her Organizing from the Inside Out book has been very helpful to me. The first step is sorting, and the second step is purging. The third step is containing (finding the right space for the stuff) and the fourth step is maintaining the system you’ve developed. You can use this with clothes, with papers, etc. Over the summer, I used it with my books (and actually got rid of some–a first!).

Her new book, Shed Your Stuff, Change Your Life, is more about how to get rid of stuff you’re holding onto, and she extends it from clutter in your house to clutter in your schedule to bad habits in your personal life. Again, she has come up with a simple system and an Acronym to remind you of it in SHED. First you Separate the treasures from the trash in your life, then you Heave the trash.  The final two steps are Embrace your Identity and Drive Yourself Forward.

What I especially like is her focus on the end result. What are the values you are trying to manifest in your life? And do the items in your house (or schedule or life) serve your purpose/help you achieve your goals?

Once you identify the arena in which you want to work, you create a list of entry points, for instance, the pile of unread magazines, the box of unsorted photographs or the box full of old Christmas cards. Then you choose the point which will cause you the minimum amount of difficulty and get you the maximum amount of effect. This is about where I am in the book so I don’t know yet how it will work out. But I have until March 20 to carry out all the steps.

Do you have a system that works for you?

The Scent of Spring

This gorgeous photo of an Indian Plum leafing out was taken by Alyss Broderick and is one of many beautiful seasonal photographs in the new Calendar Companion Weekly Planner.

Although I haven’t seen any Indian Plum, I’ve already encountered the fragrance that I call  the Scent of Spring.This year I smelled it for the first time on January 8, just outside the front door of an apartment building in my neighborhood.The next earliest smelling (can’t call it a sighting) was January 18 in 2004, so this is really early.

The next night, I noticed that the sweet box (Sarcocca hookeriana var. humilis, also known as Christmas box) outside my apartment building was already in bloom. When the landlord redid the landscaping around our apartment, he planted a row of sweet box.The first year it didn’t bloom at all but this year it is going crazy.

When I smell this lovely, flowery scent, I know spring is coming soon. What is the first sign of spring where you live?

New Year Planning

I love planning. It’s one of my favorite things to do. Which is why I spend the whole month of January figuring out my goals for the new year. This year I’ll be doing it along with the students in my online class called New Year Dreams. I’ve been seeing an upswelling of posts on the Internet with great ideas for New Year planning and thought I’d point out a few of them.

There’s the one word approach. Christine Kane is known for this method and proposes a list of good words at her site. (My word isn’t on it though) My friend Christine Valters Paintner has a lovely blog about this one word concept too. My word for 2010 (which I got from Havi Brooks, who got it from Hiro Boga), is Sovereignity.

And if you want some magic spray to go with your word, check out Deborah Weber’s offerings. I just ordered her Sovereignity spray. She has auric sprays for many popular themes, like Trust and Serenity and she can make custom blends as well.

Chris Brogan uses three words which does extend the scope a little, and I like the mind maps that go with them. His words and maps are like little mysteries to me. They wouldn’t motivate me but I like it that they are concepts not qualities. His 3 words for 2010 are Ecosystem, Owners and Kings (which is kind of like Sovereignity).

I’m encouraged that so many people are realizing that having themes is a much more useful way to approach the year than goals, which usually get reduced to something soulless like make $XX,000 money or “lose XX pounds.” A theme helps you get at the longing behind the goal, the divine quality that is wanting to be expressed.

But that doesn’t mean you don’t need metrics. I really love the spreadsheet method of tracking your goals developed by Chris Guillebeau. (Although I do notice that the men on this list approach this process in much more practical way than the more organic approaches of the women. Still both are useful.)

I sometimes have trouble figuring out where to go with my themes and the spreadsheet helps me think of them in terms of concrete goals. When I look at my spreadsheet from 2009, I’m pretty pleased at how well I’ve done. I’ll do another one of these in 2010 but not until the end of January.

Alicia Forest has an interesting way of working with themes and goals that combines the more rational approach with the organic one. She advises finding a theme for the year and then identifying four goals to accomplish, one per quarter (or season as I would have it).  She calls those the four Pillars of the year.

I may integrate this idea with the  Natural Planner process I developed to give me a more natural way of moving through the year. It reminds me to review my themes (which are different than goals) every season and acknowledge what I’ve achieved so far. Visual planning methods seem to work better for me these days than the grids and lists I used to love.

I hope you have a favorite planning process, one that fills you with delight.  If you do, please share it with me! I’m trying out as many as I can.

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