How to Make Your Personal Map for the New Year!

Yesterday, I received a lovely email from my Blue Brain “Crochet” friend, Nancy Karasek. Nancy wrote:
“From Jan Richardson’s Sanctuary of Women:  In some parts of the world, Epiphany (January 6^th ) is celebrated as Women’s Christmas. Originating in Ireland, where it is known as Nollaig na mBan, Women’s Christmas began as a day when the women, who often carried all domestic responsibilities all year, took Epiphany as an occasion to enjoy a break and celebrate together at the end of the holidays. Whether your domestic duties are many or few, Women’s Christmas is a good time to pause and take a break from whatever has kept you busy and hurried in the past weeks or months. As the Christmas season comes to a close, this is an occasion both to celebrate with friends and also to spend time in reflection before diving into the responsibilities of this new year.” 

Use do not have be a Yellow Brainer and think this poem is only for women or people who celebrate Christmas. I think your Orange Brain will appreciate the poem’s universal message of an exciting journey. As your Green Brain reads the poem you can personalize the map making by substituting words that are more precise for your life. My Blue Brain wanted to share the poem with you in hope that it would also encourage a non-religious epiphany—a sudden, intuitive perception of or insight into the reality or essential meaning of something grand for you in the New Year of 2015!

The Map You Make Yourself: A Blessing for Women’s Christmas by Jan Richardson

You have looked at so many doors with longing, wondering if your life lay on the other side. For today, choose the door that opens to the inside.

Travel the most ancient way of all: the path that leads you to the center of your life. No map, but the one you make yourself.

No provision, but what you already carry and the grace that comes to those who walk the pilgrim’s way. Speak this blessing as you set out and watch how your rhythm slows, the cadence of the road drawing you into the pace that is your own.

Eat when hungry. Rest when tired. Listen to your dreaming. Welcome detours as doors deeper in. Pray for protection. Ask for the guidance you need. Offer gladness for the gifts that come and then let them go.

Do not expect to return by the same road. Home is always by another way and you will know it not by the light that waits for you but by the star that blazes inside you telling you where you are is holly and you are welcome here.

Enjoy Your 2015 Personal Map Making!

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