2023: Assert

My word for 2023 is "Assert." This word came to me through the pulling of cards: the Wild Boar. The medicine of the wild boar is that of confrontation. I believe I have pulled this card as a means to confront myself, my essential truths, and to assert myself both to myself and in this world. To assert myself, I must confront myself. I must face limiting beliefs, and blaze a trail towards new ones through acts of courage and commitment. One way I would like to assert myself this year is to confront the belief I have about my identity and ability as a writer.

I have always wanted to write a book, but have never felt that I have a story to tell. Or, I recognize I might be in a story, but as I do not know the ending, if there really ever is an ending to to things, I dare not write it because I do not know the theme or pathway I am on. But I have learned the more I read and experience, the more connections and pathways I find. So, maybe the more I write, the more connections and pathways I will blaze. Maybe, the more I write, the more I will know myself and my story and my stories, and maybe, just maybe, by reading my stories you will know more of your own as well.

I will not wait for the ta-da moment: to share my truth when I have gone through the journey and am nice and shiny and new and can look back and offer wisdom. My journey is the trail: the rocks, roots, mud, snow, ice, switchbacks and tunnels. My journey is towards a deeper relationship with myself and with the feathered, furred, wild, and wicked.

The School of Life mentions that to be a writer is not to be defined by the outcome of a written text, but rather is someone to whom writing is a way of navigating this world. Writing is the creation of thread to sew the patchwork moments of our lives together. It is my way of digging trenches for water to flow and finding where the water has come from, where it will go, and to what bigger river, lake, or ocean it originates or journeys. I like the process of writing for its slowness. I am asked to think before I speak, to pause before I type. Writing is a way of getting your truth right without being misconstrued in delivery. For when I write I can pause, think, delete, re-write over and over again until the words match the flowing colors and shapes inside.

I believe in the power of words to shape, craft, create, define, transform our experiences. 2023 is an experiment on and with words. To crawl inside to truly know the meaning, making my language more expressive of the natural world and to tether myself back to that which is true.

At the start of 2023 I made a calendar with 12 words to guide me through the months ahead:

1. Silence

2. Gather

3. Assert

4. Protect

5. Cleanse

6. Give

7. Build

8. Reflect

9. Wisdom

10. Blaze

11. Ground

12. Observe

Each month I offer my reflection on these words to you, the ones I wrote at the beginning of the year and those I wrote as I crawled into the crevices of the words themselves each month.

What is your word for the year? What do you need to confront within yourself?