Last year my friend Brooke gave me a really wonderful gift, a marker for a year of remembering how much we've been given and how deeply thankful I am for all of it. I wear it still, but I'm thinking of retiring it for a season.
Not so much because I am any less thankful, or any less abundanted (is there a spiritual gift of word making-up-ing? cause I think I got it....), but because I am quite certain this season is bringing new learning that may require new reminders.
The necklace I wear right now has a truth built into its construction, with Gratitude and Abundance on either side of each other. I like seeing the one and remembering the other is right behind it. If I set this one down, it will be to pick up another duality that I think I'm naming Giving Up and Acceptance. Not giving up like quitting, and not acceptance like tolerance. If there was an image for this one, it would be an open hand that is Giving Up what was being held, and Accepting what is being offered. Giving up Knowing and Telling and Leading and maybe accepting Quiet and Peace and Not-Sureness.
This isn't a new image for me, this open hand, nor is it new thinking about what good living with the Spirit is like: I feel like I'm re-reading an old favourite book. Kind of like when I re-read "To Kill A Mockingbird" last year. I kept remembering how it goes as I flipped each page, although it had been all but forgotten up until that very moment. And in that fresh new old memory, there was a new depth to the story, a new richness that comes with my more lived self doing the reading. And this time around with the open hand, it's a similar experience - the Giving Up is deeper and the Accepting all the richer for it, and yet familiar all at the same time.
So I'm going to keep my eyes open for a new marker. Maybe not one to replace Gratitude and Abundance, but one to add to it.
