Wow! My 2023 quietly applied the accelerator sometime after Halloween. One day I looked up and could feel the scenery flashing passed at an ever increasing rate. A lot of people and things got my attention, and all good, but I just slid by Christmas without having allowed the stillness and space at the beginning of a Vermont winter to slow me down.
I know what to do. A couple of decades ago now, I created calendars that had a continuous flow from month to month: there's no separation between the end of one month and the beginning of the next. For example January 31st and February 1st are side by side. I see the whole year as a single unit.
December 31, 2024 is a Sunday. I can see at a glance that Groundhog's day is five Fridays from now; yet I feel very strongly, it's farther away. That's the reason for the continuous calendar: my real October, November, and December in 2023 didn't have spaces between the months either.
My 2024 calendar is in front of me right now. My last task of 2023 is to write this post. I'm using the post as a meditation on my need to have time to pause more deliberately and regularly during 2024. I'm starting with the last quarter. Halloween is on a Thursday: All Saints Day is Friday. I'm marking them as pausing days. St Nicholas Day is Friday, December 6. I'm marking that as a pausing day, and plan to send my Solstice invitations out on that day. I've marked the period around the Solstice for viewing the night sky. With this thought, I realized I haven't paused this season to stand in the stillness and watch the stars. It was cloudy on the day of our Solstice fire. It's clear tonight. I just paused to look for Orion. It's still early for him. We'll visit before I go to bed. Already, I've slowed the season.
Moving forward, my thought now is to follow the traditional wisdom of the Celtic calendar and its eight seasonal observances. I'm placing pauses on dates proximate to those. February 14th seems right for midwinter. St. Patrick's Day is a Sunday this year. I'll make the party on Saturday. This feels like the year to rent a space, hire a piper, and have a dance. I better get started. It's only 11 Saturdays away. Since you're reading this, you're invited.
For now, I'm marking out May Day, the Fourth of July, and the August 15th cure in the water, and will consider what's needed for the pauses after St. Patrick's day.
And, yeah, the calendar is full of projects, projects to plan, deadlines, aspirational project completion dates, and, of course, multiple birthdays and anniversaries. Meanwhile, the ghost of my 2020 calendar is propped behind me whispering "For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business."
This is why I need the pauses.
Warmly,
Francis Sopper