Happy New Year!

Time to ring in the new and say goodbye to the old, the outmoded, the bits and pieces that don't work any more, the wasted energy, the stuff that's so last year. I'm really, really looking forward to 2008 and all of the potential greatness it will provide! I am ready - so, so very ready - for the mental fresh slate that we allow ourselves with this calendar. (I've been reading a bunch about 2012, particularly this awesome book by Daniel Pinchbeck, and my feelings towards our current calendar are a bit skewed right now ;-)

I've decided this year to post my resolutions publicly on the blog, because I think it holds me somehow more accountable than if I just wrote them in my private journal and didn't tell anyone. Knowing, of course, that the *only* way resolutions are ever kept is by actually keeping them, not by guilt - yes, I understand. Either way, you get to share in them ~ and who knows? Maybe they will inspire you in some way or another. I would be honored if they did!

So, without further ado... In 2008, I resolve to:

• Chill out and enjoy my life! Otherwise known as: seek and maintain inner peace, always. Live your yoga. Be the ball. Follow your bliss. Exist in love. Live in the light. Become the sound of one hand clapping. For me, at this time in my life, finding and keeping inner peace in every situation is the ultimate resolution. What's out: Needing to be right, needing to prove my point, needing things to go my way all the time, needing other people to act certain ways or meet certain expectations - and getting frustrated, angry, or annoyed when they don't. Above all, I resolve to seek to find and maintain inner peace in every moment. If, by the time 2009 rolls around, I can say that I tried my absolute best to make this way of living a true reality for myself, then I will know for sure that I can do anything in the world.
  
• ... and related to the first and most important resolution, is this entreaty from Rumi, which I may as well get tattooed inside my eyelids: Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it. Ok, Rumi! I'm listening this time! I resolve to take my task to heart this year, to find those barriers that I have built and release them from my life.
  
• Keep a dream journal ~ I've done this before and the depths my dreams reached was unbelievable. I hope to reach many new levels in the new year.
• Remember to take reusable bags every time I go to the store. We've got the big canvas ones for groceries ~ I've also placed a ChicoBag in my car, just in case, and will likely get a few more to stash in "emergency" places!
• Blog at least once a week ~ it's good for my writing, for my soul, for my brain, and it's hopefully fun for you, too!
• Get a massage at least once a month ~ vital, vital, vital for my physical and emotional well-being. What's out: putting it off for fear of being too "selfish" or whatever other silly excuses I come up with. With places like Quan Yin offering such great prices, I can no longer afford to neglect this area of my life.
  
• Finish the proposal for my fire dancing book - and shop it around! I'm really, really, really excited about this one - and besides, it's great to have a new book to be working on!
  
• Continue pressing forward with my novel ~ researching more agents, rewriting, rewriting, rewriting, more editing, and more shopping it around. What's out: stagnating on this and/or letting it get me down, bum me out, make me cynical. The only - the ONLY - solution is to keep moving forward with it. Continually and forever.
• Drive less. Take public transportation and ride my bike more.
• Work with my financial advisor to create a sustainable 5-year plan. That'll put us at 2013, and if the world hasn't ended by then, it will be nice to know I can continue living on this planet :-)
• Master vegan cooking ~ okay, maybe "master" is a bit extreme. But I'd love to be so adept at it by the end of the year that I can whip up yummy, healthy delights at a moment's notice without having to stick my nose into a cookbook for an hour first.
• Vote in every election! Now, more than ever.
  
• And finally, this one isn't as succinct and snappy, but it's quite deep and meaningful for me. I resolve to expend my energy in relationships where there is love, joy, peace, harmony, understanding, and true friendship equally from both sides. I resolve to meet and forge new friendships with people - women and men of all ages - who live healthfully, peacefully, and happily, with some recognition of the higher spirit, and who are seeking out higher planes and higher paths of living. It's sad but true that not all relationships and friendships last ~ and sadly, I've had to say goodbye to quite a few this past year that simply don't work any more. 2008 is a new path for me ~ a new reality that I am creating for myself ~ and it isn't in the best interest of anyone to spend time with people who vampire the energy away, who take, take, and take but don't give back. Those people are so last year. What's out: self-destructiveness, partying as escapism, too much partying period, self-serving pseudo-spirituality, self-obsessed hipster whining, complaining period, flaking, not responding to emails, not responding to phone calls, blaming it all on the partying. Here's to a new year filled with health, wealth, and culpability ~ and beautiful, stimulating, vibrant and love-filled friends!

A million blessings and more to all of you in 2008. I wish only the best for every single one of my dear readers in the upcoming year. Peace and love.

Namasté.