Naming the Year

One Word 365: a call to simplification, to focus. Forget your resolutions, forget your plans and lists and whatever else.  Pick a word, just one word, for the whole year.

A mantra, a shield, a thing to cling to against the forces that rage and push and distract. Just one thing.

I am prone to starting too many projects at once. I am guarding against it.

But.



I am personally obsessed with words. I revel in them. I am humbled and enthralled by their power. Song lyrics, lines of poetry, simple mottos. A tid-bit from Dear Sugar on my monitor at work - "Walk without a stick into the darkest woods." - is a reminder to dive into deep and intimidating projects and political quagmires that seem doomed to fail. An Adrienne Rich quote (from Twenty-One Love Poems), one of many that I've clung to, hung on my refrigerator for months, "No one has imagined us. We want to live like trees, sycamores blazing through sulfuric air, dappled with scars, still exuberantly budding, our animal passion rooted in the city."

These words, other people's words, ground me. Restore. Remind. Gently prod me in the direction I know I want to move, shine like tiny points of light through the desperate confusion that my own mind often houses. I've often searched pointedly for some set of words to support and guide me through a situation, carried them around in my pocket and touched them when I needed a life-line.

This all probably makes me sound really fucking crazy.

So from one perspective, a word to cling to throughout the year, one thing, one idea, is tantalizing.

The interesting happens when we graduate from "choosing a word" to "naming the year." Some of the people participating in this project have called it exactly that, "naming the year."

This evolves it into a whole new level of fun. The power in names is a special kind of word-power. It gives one ownership, control.

(I know that most of those who are participating in the One Word 365 project aren't using it this way, as an explicitly magical construct, but I've got more than enough Chaos floating around in my head to justify applying this particular tool out of its context.)

So, then, I wonder: Can I name my year in advance? Can I give the story a title before I've written it?

Of course I can. Why not?

And if I was wavering, a bit, a quick trip to the local metaphysical shop yesterday led me into the cellulose arms of a beautiful new book. I've enjoyed everything I've read by Lon Milo Duquette, and I hadn't heard of this one before. The back cover proclaims "the most important secret of magick - and of life: DO NOT BE AFRAID."

And my card of the day was the 8 of Wands. I made a quick decision. I bought the book. I read it in 4 hours.

I have named my year Courage. More on why, perhaps, later, but: I have a lot of shit to deal with. And Lon Milo DuQuette told me not to be afraid.