For the last month or two,

I've been mulling over options for my word of the year for 2024.  (If you're not familiar with the concept, here is a good post for an outline).

After considering the words notice and focus, I was reminded of this Rumi quote: 

‘When I run after what I think I want, my days are a furnace of stress and anxiety; if I sit in my own place of patience, what I need flows to me, and without pain.  From this I understand that what I want also wants me, is looking for me and attracting me.  There is a great secret here for anyone who can grasp it.’ 

And a meditation reminded me of the feeling I had this past month as I saw people going through my artwork, really seeing it in so many ways.  They discussed it, asked questions, looked deeply and with great interest.  It made me aware of how little we, as artists and more importantly, as people, rarely have the chance to be really seen.  And, unique to artists I believe, is the intense attention to the miracles around us because as we notice and focus on so many things that make up our environment.  

I wonder what our world would look like if we could only truly see each other and the world we inhabit.  Would we finally realize that we are all one?  Would we understand that damage to any being is damage to ourselves?  Would we begin to know that the planet, too, is a sentient being, and that what we do to the planet is what we do to ourselves (and vice versa)?

As Haley Jacobson says, “I have lived in my body long enough to know the compass always points inwards’.  What we focus on is not only speeding through our own psyche like an out-of-control train, it affects those around us and the energy of the planet.  We can only stop the wars, the destruction, the intolerance, the bigotry, and the hatred in the world by defeating it in ourselves.  And truly, the only way we can do this is to truly see that ‘you and I are one’. 

Some of my favourite synonyms for the word see are discern, understand, visualize, recognize, know, examine, observe, notice, and witness.

My commitment to 2024 (as you may already have guessed, is to see.  I have a deep desire to really know each person I meet and to understand their being.  I want to see the miracles that surround us and to perceive the possibilities inherent in each moment.

The reminders I create each year get posted from one end of the studio to the other, and keep me focused on my desired outcome.  

I'm wondering whatyour word for 2024 will be.  Have you chosen one yet?  What are the connotations that have you drawing towards it (and vice versa)?  Enquiring minds want to know - and see!