Fourth Day of Christmas

This is the fourth day of the twelve-day festal tide - a sacred, festive season. I'm in Sabbath mode, spending these Twelve Days doing as little work as possible, resting, reflecting, and finding peace within.

Agenda:

1. Kwanza principle
2. Christmas retreat brainstorm

3. Creativity reading

4. Creativity plans

5. Start an art project

6. Plan New Year's resolutions

1. Kwanza principle:

The third day of Kwanzaa is dedicated to the principle of ujima (oo-JEE-mah), which is collective work and responsibility. Ujima is teamwork, working together for others and helping my neighbors.

Ujima reminds me of my obligation to my community, society, and world, and to the past, present and future. Imagine if all my actions flowed from the actions of those who came before me, and were considerate of all those who will come after me! That would be a life of great integrity and compassion!

Ujima creates synergy- creative cooperation, open-minded teamwork, and the adventure of finding new solutions to old problems. We each bring all of our personal experience and expertise to the table, and join together to produce far better results than we could as individuals.

From my Journal: My synergy goal this year is to gather with a group who wants to work together on climate action of some kind - I will be an open-minded team player!

2. Christmas retreat brainstorm:

I am again making the 12 Days of Christmas into a mini-retreat for myself - I'm doing some reading and writing every day, focusing on my priorities and what I'm called to do (or not do) next in my life. My plan is to contemplate, honor, and practice a different one of my life priorities each day, and set some goals and resolutions for 2025, based on guidance from God.

Today I am honoring my priority of Creativity-

What creative ideas do I have to improve my house, my relationships, my faith community, my neighborhood, and my community?

How can I use my art and writing to enlighten and project my creative vision into the world? What themes are calling out to me to express this year? What big projects do I want to undertake?

How can I use craftivism to spread a message of peace, social justice, and environmental responsibility into the world? 

How can I develop and expand my playful, joyful, spontaneous, creative qualities and share these with my grandsons?

3. Creativity reading:

A few years ago I started but didn't finish this book by Eric Maisel (one of my favorite writers). The subtitle is "A Year's Worth of Inspiration and Guidance." Who doesn't want that? 

I'm on to Week 19: Put Up a Big Idea. "We are bombarded with minutia ... In this onslaught, the big ideas that really matter can easily get lost. One way to prevent such losses is to write a big idea on your erasable board ... to remind you of the central them of your current work or to help you incubate a new project."

"What big idea would you like to wrestle with over the coming weeks and months?"

4. Creativity plans:

My theme for today is creativity and self-expression. Creativity is a way of thinking and being: A creative mind is relaxed, expansive, and spontaneous. When I am open to creativity and inspiration, I can see original answers to any question. 

The childlike qualities of joy and curiosity support my innovative, creative spirit. I use my creativity to make things, and express myself, and also to solve problems. Creativity goals might be to increase my curiosity and wonder, to explore and develop my playful qualities, or to express my deepest messages.

My ideas for creativity and self-expression goals for next year so far are:

• My Big Idea is "Active Hope"; I want to explore this with abstract paintings as well as appliqué story pictures.
• Continue to develop my Unity Art process, and share it with teaching garden signage and giveaway art.
• Also, a series of "getting know nature" projects of some kind.
• Share fun seasonal pre-school art projects. with my grandsons, and remind myself to play when we make art together. Write about kid art and post weekly.
• Share simple art skills with fun art class offerings.

5. Start an art project:

I've got one gift project to finish still, and then I want to start a fun, easy, sewing project to take with me as we travel on the train, and visit with family.

6. Plan New Year's resolutions:

I've got lots of missions and goals, but resolutions are a little different; they usually involve self-improvement, or correcting chronic behaviors. Still, I want my New Year's resolutions to speak to my purpose in life. Looking back to my plans for renewal, quite a few pop out as possible resolutions. Today I'll take some time to write about possible resolutions.

Tips: 

• Start early: If I wait until the last minute, my resolutions will be based only on my mind-set that particular day. 
• Be realistic. Set small, clearly defined goals that will be possible to accomplish. 
• Also, limit the number to two or three at the most.
• Make a plan: Consider how I will stick to it. Experts say it takes about 21 days for a new activity to become a habit, and 6 months for it to become part of my personality.
• Talk about it: Don't keep my resolutions a secret. Tell at least a couple people what I am planning, and ask if they will check up on my progress.
• Write about my motivations: A few weeks in to the New Year it will be very helpful to read and remember why I thought these resolutions were such a good idea.