Another lap around our fairest sun. BFD? or A NEW BEGINNING? (versus Old Beginnings)

Not until my trainer said "OKAY I WANT YOU ALL TO WORK EXTRA HARD CAUSE THIS IS YOUR LAST TIME BOXING IN THIS DECADE" (yes, she does speak in all caps) did i realize the whole end-of decade thing. I'm not one for the numbers. 

Right Over Left, from
the Pop Up Book of Terror and Despair, 2007

Starting 2001, for realz, i can honestly say it has been a relentlessly difficult ten years. I've said more than a few times, with a tired laugh finding it's way from my wet face in my hands, "it just hasn't been my decade."  Very Charlie Browny, I know. I'm more than aware. But given the actual circumstances, about as hopeful and surrender-ful as could be. Having remembered a time when life felt very different Before and Since a particular time in early 2001 creates this notion of a hopefully-bookended period of my life, versus an acceptance of "this is how it is now [-adays]."  "But Bridget, you know that only by fully saying Yes to and accepting this moment can you be happy/at peace... and this peaceful moment is all there is..."
Yup, I do.
Also, one can say "I have cancer. And I'm at peace." While at the same time motivating their spirits and bodies through more difficult times with the belief that they will get better/survive/"beat it". At least it's my experience. I feel it fully when I am saying NOOOOOOO!!!!! to what's going on during a painful time, and know it's a trap I'm stuck in.  Pema Chodron said "give up hope" - it was a completely baffling and eventually profoundly transformative teaching for me. Scratch "get better" off your list - this is it. But there are times when survival mode makes presence just about impossible, and hope or done are the polarities. Anyone who has been really sick and has a cache of Distress Tolerance skills under their belt knows that the magic words to hang in and sit through it is "this too shall pass." And there is some "future" and "hope" serving me in those moments. Even if it is, literally, about 30 seconds from now, not looking 5 years out.

Togo, 2010

So anyway, damning or not, I've created my story to have a chapter here. A chapter i try to close and start anew every day. So yes, i'll take that January 1st placebo, thank you. I have to believe that the possibility inherent in every singular moment for unstrung thusness could be especially within reach/realizable at a time when I'm believing a New Beginning is at hand. As my psychiatrist said as she pushed another long-resisted/refused Rx at me last week, "it can't possibly get worse." I know that's like a cosmic dare on some level. I guess if more annhiliation is what is in store for this continual becoming, i can just welcome that as easily (who just put an anvil in my chest?), and give myself some time and space for the weariness alongside a lighter floating-along-in-boat detachment. I can be both.

"Opening" Taken at St. George's Island, 2008.  B.A.M.

So today I'm daring myself to collect my blessings, re-commit to peace for myself and others, get rewired up to Everything/source/whathave you, and be brave enough to choose hope when the enourmity of reviewing the years is at hand. Which I do want to do. I was an avid journaller for 10+ years, and stopped when the books became too heavy with repetition - identical pages of despair, almost to the word, in every book year after year. So I stopped, and started making art. But I've found I've lost something there - I stopped torturing myself with Story and Time, but I lost learning, seeing change, and blessings (many of you know by now I have a few memory issues. ahem. where was I?)
My dad, having just lost his other daughter, found it in his heart to still feel for me, and sent an intense email last night. so emphatic that he was "a believer" that i was coming back to the light, and named the chapter-finishing, recent travels, meeting a couple of new friends and the inspiration i've found in the window into their worlds as unfettered creators and passionate seekers - all as good signs. Maybe he's just saying anything to have a happy and healthy daughter in the world. Or maybe he's right.
Akeru - an ending or opening or left-behind hole that creates the space for newness and possibility. (yaaay). 
Maybe I'll get to go "home" to the woods next week and fire and feed and silence and read my way to where this is all complete bullshit. Or maybe that will be the case after I get up and stretch and drink some water. But today, December 31, 2010, at 1:38pm, These were my Thoughts on the New Year. Peace.

That website I said people needed..

Okay, so I went on and on in my chapter about the lack of simple informative resources for all the teachers and parents googling "crafts for kids" or "art projects" and the like - that there just weren't sites that were actually offering appropriate activities/info for how to actually nurture your kids' creativity, versus destroying it with handprint turkeys and coloring books.
The editors, godblessem, said, "don't you think you ought to go ahead and create that resource?"

So, I have to (i guess?) get stuff I've already created for professional development/teacher trainings etc into PDF's and put them up on this page, maybe with some blurbs from my chapter...
here's all I have so far. Kind of the intro page. I had a sparse splash page, but as rad as Wix is, i get a bit lost and kind of screwed up the pages. Take a looksee, give me your thoughts, and what you want out of such a website. And how you want it. I know I need to change the scribbly font, bt Wix has limited options and I had trouble letting go.
http://www.everykidsanartist.com/