Please allow me to share my Creative Awakenings thought process as I continue to explore my intention for December.

Sometimes it's hard for me to take time this year to sit still and envision my future because I'm so busy wrapping up the past. The finishing part of my intention is filling my days and the beginning part of the intention is simmering on a back burner. I was feeling anxious about this, after all I'd declared my intention to be about finishing and beginning, about a type of metamorphosis, moving from one year to the next. Ironically, this anxiety has been stopping me from finishing my Art of Intention. (That anxiety plus fear of creating something so hideously ugly that I am embarrassed to post a picture here!) 

Gypsy Since I want to make setting and following my intentions a priority in my life, to ensure that I don't squander my days just crossing things off my to do lists for the sake of feeling productive at the cost of being creative, I decided I needed to pull out one of the Transformation Deck cards and see how it might inspire me. 

I'd been hoping to pull a card that prominently featured wings and birds and flight – the imagery that I've been collecting for my Art of Intention. When I turned over the card I selected, I was disappointed to see it had pictures from the past, photos of someone's mother or grandmother in the 1950s, dark imagery, a picture of home. Why was I pulling a picture of home when in my mind I was dreaming of flying over the rainbow?

The truth is, I pulled the perfect card. When I flipped in my Creative Awakenings book to page 117, I found out that the card I pulled is called "Gypsy Spirit Day" and lurking quietly in the background image is a bird sitting at the top of a tree. The combination of looking to the past while thinking about the future, being grounded by family and memories while dreaming of flying, the idea of being a gypsy while being in love with home: all of this reflects what has happened to me in 2010. Let me explain.

1. Being a gypsy. Gypsies might be known for not having roots, but that's not really true. The Roma people (what the European Gypsy's are properly called) are a very tight-knit group with close families and strong traditions. They are just not tied to a specific piece of land. I love this idea because I love studying historical traditions while at the same time being free to move around physically and mentally, getting to know new ways of doing things at the same time. It's hard because I don't bring all of the people I love with me on each new journey, but the internet has helped me keep in touch more recently than I ever was able to in the past.

2. Loving home. This time last year, I wasn't sure if I wanted to keep my house, or even continue living in Colorado or the United States. But after spending four months sort-of vagabonding around Europe, I have come to appreciate the comfort of home much more. Again, it's my friends I miss when I return to my nest, but I am completely thrilled to be back in my comfort zone where I can totally relax for the time being. It's true, the cliche, "absence makes the heart grow fonder, and also, "familiarity breeds contempt."

3. Grounded by the past. Just like the Roma, I have to remember that I am made up of my past. My mind is filled with thoughts and feelings about things I've learned on this journey, and my cells are filled with the DNA that's been passed down to me from my parents and grandparents and their parents before them. We can't know anything about the future, so it's only by looking at the past that we can gain any sense of continuity or progress and change. I love my past and even though I have some regrets, I don't let them hold me back. If I've learned one thing it's that I will most likely regret NOT trying something new, NOT opening myself up, NOT going through the next door, rather than holding back.

4. Preparing for flight. And that leads me to the final part of my intention for December, taking flight and moving on to something new. I won't be able to engage in that fully until sometime in the new year, but I don't want to keep looking backwards. While I am finishing up so many projects that I've been working on for the last weeks, months, and even years, I am remembering to muse about the future and keep an open mind about where I will find myself this time next year.

Home: Travel

Past: Future

Ground: Flight

Finishing: Beginning

All of these opposites are just like the two sides of the coin that is my life. Another cliche, but also true.

I love how all these images tie together, even if it's "just" my mind, my brain, my attention that makes it work. Coincidence? I don't think so. Setting my intention and giving myself time to muse over it is helping me form a better view of my future. Now I just hope that this weekend I am brave enough to pull all the materials I've collected together and finish my Art of Intention!