A 365 day journey

I began posting on this blog, a new one for me, just over a month ago, inspired by a good friend, who welcomed her larger online community to join her in her second year of daily posting.  (I write about why I started a new blog here in my first post At Home in the World). 

She started her second 365 day cycle today, with a new intention/theme for the next year, so I'm officially starting my 365 day now, too.  I've found as we were traveling, even if I was posting about nature, I normally wasn't gardening, so I included travel experiences and reflections too, over the last decade, as a regular blogging practice became part of the rhythm of my life.

We were away so much the last year, including in a new place that's "home"  -- well, I thought a different blog, both in form and to some degree theme would encourage being mindful of different sorts of reflections, and so it has been.  A different kind of blog incorporates more inward reflection, with sharing of art experiments, perhaps, and thoughts about creating books (or not!)

A watercolor inspired by the Blue Ridge Mountains, from a NC Arboretum class a few years back

So, sitting in my brightly light studio, on a late afternoon that feels like summer, I don't know what the year ahead might bring, but am glad of the encouragement to commit to a daily practice.

When I started writing blog posts in 2007, I wrote posts three to five days a week for the first 4 years or so -- nature reflections, gardening reflections, thoughts about local food, sustainability -- this continued over many, many blog posts over the years.  For a couple of years, when I was in multiple online groups and class, I wrote so much elsewhere, I didn't have time or energy to write as many posts.  In other years, the circumstances weren't as conducive -  looking at my blog archives, the lowest number of annual posts was 82. 

So writing in a blog format is a familiar practice, so that part's easy.  The challenge is finding something meaningful to write about -- that I'm interested in reading again and might be interesting to others, although that's not my main concern.  My blogs are nature and travel journals, when it comes down to it.

I'm glad that we'll be at home most of the coming year, whether it's here in Western North Carolina or Quebec.  Traveling, as well as living in countries other than your own, provides insights into what it means to be part of places that are different; but, equally revealing is how we choose to spend time while "home," too - whether we're mindful of seasonal rhythms, the songs of birds, or the fading leaves or get lost in the routine task of keeping things going.  I'm hopeful of keeping focus on the former.

I'm looking forward to spending time gathering,  reviewing, and synthesizing my thoughts and reflections, both current and previous, and expressing them here:  to what aim, I'm not sure.  The themes of my life have been pretty consistent -- nature, teaching, traveling, gardening, and writing, expressed in different ways at different times.

Now, I'm fortunate to have the time and space to re-knit the threads that have been key throughout my life to a new pattern, which may be familiar or maybe not.  Perhaps there will be a lot more art, too.  I don't know. But I'll be writing about the journey here in my daily reflections.