Truth and Future – Words for 2016

 

(A Maggie Khun quote)

I took a silly Facebook quiz recently to determine my word for 2016.  Not a quiz exactly, just a random response to one’s name.  The first time I did it, the result was the word  Truth.  Since I prefer relationships to single choices when given a challenge, I did the quiz a second time with a different version of my name. That response was Future.  Future and Truth. What can I do with these two words in the coming year?

First, I should tell you that I have not been blogging for most of the last half of 2015 because I’ve been living.  Making changes is a dirty job.  And sometimes it’s a great drunken brawl. There’s much clean-up and rumination about where to put new things and where to discard the old.  And, sometimes you just want to get your hair done and see what’s for dinner. You may have gone off to do some living yourself.  Hopefully, you’ll come back because here I am, so here we go.

December 2015 was my 70^th birthday.  That’s right. S-E-V-E-N-T-Y.  I’m not that.  Am I?  I am that  label. She is seventy! And because I do not look that label, what sits behind it becomes less important to some than the label. It isn’t that I don’t appreciate the label, certainly youthful looks help much of the time although never in the unexpected moments such as the dark hours that require the soul to perform with courage that was, until that hour, unimaginable. I am grateful for the gift of youthful looks.  But there are times when I want a T-shirt that reads: I am the author of an incredible life.  I survived.  The only thing that defines me are my wings –  because what I hear much of the time is “What? You can’t be! How can you be?” and labelers cease to look deeply.  They want all the nice stuff, the light stuff, never the meat and never the bone. This is why I tell stories.  True stories.  I am these stories.  I have been there.  I am here.  I am going elsewhere. I am many things in many times, but I am not a number. You are not a number.  We are lives.  We are Life. We are the stories. The stories are our truth and the truth creates the future for everyone.  There’s that other word – Future.

When you tell a story that is your own, you need to tell your truth, otherwise your future becomes a lie you live.  A lie that we all live because we are all a part of each other, that connection we share on this incredible stage called Life that tells a larger story about the world, the universe. If you tell your truth in your stories no harm ever comes to you.  There are no secrets to be used as swords, no bridges denied you. All doors are unlocked.  You are released from bondage.  When you are released, we are all released. But I digress.

If I could choose my own number, separate from age or deadlines, I would have chosen the number 3.  It is round, thick with opportunity, velvety like the dark edges of purple roses, plump in a garden beneath moonlight on a clear night.  The closed curves on one side of the number hold secrets while the open spaces on the other side are pathways for knowledge, roads over which messengers travel and meet for tea, for a shot at the end of the bar just before closing. Where outcomes are determined. Where puzzles are solved and gun barrels are emptied before there is ever a need to point the weapon.  Everyone goes home alive.  I would have chosen the number three.  It would have been mine. Seventy is already on its way elsewhere.  It is also where I am in my story.

Stories I will tell in 2016 – to you or in private – will be recorded in the history of truth so that others with similar stories recognize they are not alone, and a road is opened for potential healers of the future. We desperately need more healers. Some of my stories are about me.  Some are about people I love and one or two are about villains I have personally known.  I will show you the marks they left and some of the gifts that were bestowed upon me. Every single story will be written in truth.

What about you?  What will you tell?  How will you tell it?  I wish you a year of healing and restoration, of love, abundance, peace and kindness and most important of all, I wish that you find whatever you need that gets you to stand in the center of your world – our world – and be exactly who you are, fully and with great flare, with kindness and compassion and absolutely without apology.  Stand in your truth. Naysayers off to the side.  Their time will come.

May the Force be with you, the wind at your back, and all the cookies be calorie free.

Namaste’