hi friend,

the winter solstice was yesterday and i didn’t have time to make my goals! traditionally, this day has been when i assess how my year past has been, and to make new goals for the upcoming year, and also envision a five-year plan that’s helpful to keep me on track. okay, call me pagan, but i associate the winter solstice with the time of being quiet, calm, inward. christmas does come from the winter solstice, for those of you who don’t know yet. i guess my fondness of goal-making on the shortest, darkest day of the year, the winter solstice, comes from when i worked with others to prepare for an Native American Indian sweat lodge. we’d meet for preparatory exercises, to clear ourselves for the spring-scheduled sweat. each week our group would gather, there in east hampton, in the snow-covered state of new york, out by the ocean in a house warmed by a roaring fire. when the winter solstice came around we did ceremony together: threw our frustrations into the fire we called sacred, and made our intentions known (only to ourselves if we were shy) about what we wanted to accomplish in the upcoming new year.

i love ritual! there is something so primordial, so … sacred … about enacting purposeful intentions with others, with a touch of drama and a great bit of good humor. ritual helps celebrate the joy of living.

like this little-known montana ritual of male-bonding:

weird male ritualizing

yes yes, i know you’re shaking your head. this is a big sky-style bachelor party, in case you’re wondering. stange but…ritual nontheless!

so on this day, the day after the winter solstice, i’m performing my intimate rite of “going within, to speak to that deepest part of my soul” –right in front of you! here, with you, i share my goals for 2009. how better to make myself accountable than to tell the entire world what i’d like to accomplish this next year?

with my beloved partner, we’ll do our goal-setting privately, thank you very much. because, yes, together we do make goals together each year too. why not? it’s fun, and it keeps us aware of what we want to do, as a love-couple. we include categories of financial, family, travel, and spiritual, among the kind of goals we share together. i’ll keep you posted if anything comes up i need to shout to the entire world about. otherwise, that area of my life i keep private. have you noticed? this blog is not about the blah-blah-blah of my daily life. consider this post about as familiar as i’m ready to get. (NOT your ordinary blog, i hope you realize by now: lord flea sings the song of ONENESS, not ME-ness)

so …. with a drum roll … and a great little celebratory drawing to focus on ….

Many notes, one voice

here are my goals …

1.   Be One with Spirit and see God in All

2.   Share with the public my ideas, my art 

3.   Publish “More Than Dust,” the book I’m working on

4.   Learn more and speak better Spanish

5.   Serve my mom, my partner and kids, and others as needed, but not in place of my Higher Self

6.   Be true to my Higher Self

7.   Be joyous, pray unceasingly, give thanks

8.   Have fun!

9.   Love and laugh more than not.

10. Be here now–and think how to do that best.

Om-ing with you and you and you

in the Light, lordflea sends you love