The year is new and the word is Integrate. Last year, I came out of the ‘word of the year’ closet. The absurd process of choosing one word to guide my steps and the cosmos toward a particular current or leaning is an exercise in reflection and daring-doo. How dare I throw my hat in a direction that I want in the future? Future is only concept but it is an inevitable concept.
Once you pick a word, you see evidence everywhere of its existence. I wish I was more diligent in documenting last year’s word success. Honestly, I was busy living the word so closely that I started to take for granted all of the alignment cues that made me pause and feel the ‘wow.’
I now live near a river with such high currents there are warning signs about drowning–so don’t even think of swimming in it!
High-current rivers take a while to freeze, if they freeze at all.
The ice and water formations change every day on my river.
Ice integrates with open water, or is it water that integrates as temperatures play their way around with the day?
I’m not sure I even have capacity to integrate this portal of beauty that I find myself in almost every single moment of my current day-to-day.
The nuts and rivets of integration aren’t always pretty; by definition, they are part of a bigger picture.
Every squiggle and triangle contributes to holding up Frank J. Wood. Unlike with today’s bridges, it’s not the footings but the elaborate web of steel that delivers suspension.
Here, we integrated standing up with falling down, gravity with anti-gravity.
Integration is a question with several answers.
I have learned that weeds and disease are expert at integration.
I am called to learn from them too.
The wind rustles, the sun gets strong enough, and the connective tissue of the pretty snow will disappear. This invasive will be less photogenetic and continue its quiet death-grip until something else with influence takes hold.
If we are but a wisp of current or spirit then one word spoken out loud, or in the mind’s eye, has enormous influence.
It is a concept,
but a hopeful concept, just like the concept of a year being ‘new’.
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Do you play or have you played ‘word of the year? Your word: verb, noun, or both; a prayer, a meaning and definition for you to explore as a day, month, or year unfolds before you?
Let me know and we can play together. -wb
