I didn’t choose a word this year, I did something different instead. Every year for the last – maybe 6 years (?) I’ve been able to select a word that would serve as the theme for my year – the backbone, if you will, from which decisions would be made, quests would be determined and priorities set. But as 2021 was approaching, I just couldn’t find the right word. Nothing had the adequate breadth to cover the expansiveness of the year I wanted to have while also having the height to cover its anticipated ‘bigness’. Last year it was lion-hearted which served me well through the pandemic, a fiercely determined huntress who is equally fierce about protecting her pride. In years gone by I’ve had words like ‘moxy’ and ‘breathe’ which did okay at serving their purposes. Coming out of a year like 2020 was not like the turning of any other calendar page that I’ve experienced in my life though. One word?? I knew I wanted to follow my intuition with more confidence so I tuned in and tried to determine what it was telling me.

In the last quarter of 2020 I got back into running, something I had done a little of in years gone by but never to any great success. But this time as I ran around my local country roads I would sometimes see little kingfishers sitting on the powerlines watching me go past. I loved it when this would happen, it would always give me a small burst of energy. So I started to look into the mystical little critters, learning about the symbolism hey have held for various cultures. The more I read, the more my spidey-senses tingled. I was on to something, and so I decided to change the rules and take on a spirit animal for the year. I’ll keep you posted as to how it goes, in the mean time, watch the video below that explains a little further about what the kingfisher means to me.

I drew the picture in Procreate on my iPad with an Apple Pencil.

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