Didn’t the first month of 2014 go quickly?

I completed the first mile-stone in my year long project [whew!] it was a challenge at times, but I’m getting more and more into the swing of it.  What I have found especially interesting is to see where my attention goes in any given day – there is definitely a theme for the month.

I showed you the first 14 days here if you want to have another peek – and here is the rest of January’s cards – read them as you would a book and double click for enlarged views:

The second card with the sun celebrates the second sunny day of the year – the back has a note ‘two out of fourteen ain’t bad!’ a wry nod to Meatloaf.  The inception of my ‘Choose Joy’ painting is noted, and my brother and other siblings carry the last three.

These next six begin with a reminder to keep my thoughts clear, continue with the painting and past memories and end with the gypsy making her entrance into my consciousness.

I kept peace for my brother, birthed the gypsy and created a new garden as January ended.

Just one month complete and I begin to wonder how big is this project going to get?

Here are some thoughts from looking at these cards this morning.

My brother’s health is ‘stable’ and I continue to hold him in my thoughts.  It is such a wonderful thing to see that when we deal with our human mortality our instinct is to balance this with life.  Over the years I have lost many loved ones and been at many funerals and noticed that the conversation often turns to birth – stories of birthing and new-borns for example – and have come to see that this is part of our grieving process, for life and death are so beautifully entwined.  And here in January I see I have done the same thing, entwined as the month is with memories of siblings and aunts who were loved and lost, and who I felt draw near from time to time, while I grieved for lives cut short and unfulfilled potential, I birthed my own inner Gypsy [Narf7 gets full credit for her midwifery skills!] and ended by creating a new garden.  🙂

Life and death, life and death – being and becoming, experiencing and letting go, living and dying.  We experience it every day in a hundred different ways yet only become fully conscious when it is our own mortality we are faced with.  Personally I remain convinced it is just another door way we walk through, which unfortunately, once closed cannot be reopened for us to have another shot at this particular life.  Which is why I also think it is really important to learn the lessons we are here to learn and to love one another.  All the rest is rather unimportant and simply the means by which we learn [or do not learn] our lessons.

Right, down off my soap-box, things to do, lessons to be learnt and another day card to be created……

Thanks for coming by, I love that you did!  🙂