Happy New Year!  In just a couple of days we will sing Auld Lang Syne, bid adieu to this year and herald in 2019.  From December’s point of view, the year feels as if it has flown past and yet when we look at a new, unwritten upon year, we have the illusion that it will be in this next year we have all the time we need for all the things we want to accomplish or try and all the dreams we dream.  Alas, the realists among us know that in a blink, we will once again be looking back on this year and wondering how it got away on us.

This is the time of the year when Astrologists get their moments of fame as they make predictions for the upcoming year.  Theirs is the science that studies the placement of the objects in the sky at different times of the year and makes predictions from these celestial beings on our very terrestrial lives.

I love to read my New Year horoscope.  I don’t put any stock in it at all but it sure makes me feel good to know that ‘Jupiter is in my house’ and ‘this is the best time for investments, love and business’.  Imagine!  As I was thinking about my 2019 horoscope, I wondered what it would be like if instead of looking to the sky to see what might be in our futures, we could start with a blank dark sky and place in it the stars, constellations and other celestial objects of our choosing.

To begin our sky portrait, we would need to begin by placing the big objects.  The moon, with her strong gravitational pull, is said to influence our mood.  As we place the moon in our sky, it would be nice to create it so that it illuminates not only the feelings we have that seem to just come over us, but also the feelings we wish to create within ourselves.  Placing the moon is no small responsibility, for not only do our moods affect ourselves, our work and our dreams, they also affect each person with whom we have any interaction.

In my sky, I’d make my moon full, so as not to hide or minimize my feelings.

Constellations are also needed to bring out the best of the night sky.  Constellations are groups of stars that form recognizable patterns.  Each pattern, or group can always be found together.  In Astrology and Astronomy, each constellation is named and has a distinct shape which can often be identified as a mythological creature after which it is named.  Most of us can pick out the Big Dipper in the night sky.  Some have an eye trained well enough to find Orion’s Belt or The Three Sisters as she is sometimes called.

When we place our own constellations in our 2019 sky, it will be important to pick some things that we will be proud to look back on and recognize.   We want to be able to point to 2019 and pick out some projects or trips we completed. Our constellations may also take the shape of our family or friends.  Perhaps we will hone a new skill, thus placing a fiddle or ukulele in our personal sky. 

In my 2019 sky, I’ll need to have some object that represents creativity for I know I want to experiment with some new skills in this area.  Perhaps four knitting needles might signify my imagined ability to make socks.  And I’ll have to have a lighthouse that might represent the leadership course I plan to take.  I may even place a large group of stars closely together to represent audiences and clients I will work with.  It is possible there could be a wheel of some kind to remind me that once my foot is mended, I will get back on my bike and set some new goals.

After placing the moon and constellations in our sky, we have the lovely final job of scattering it with some individual stars.  These represent the people we hope to give our attention to this upcoming year.  Some of these stars will be easy to place.  These are bright stars in our worlds.  We already know we want to make time for these people.  But there will be many other smaller stars waiting to be placed too.  There really is no limit to their number.  These represent people we may not yet know, or people with whom our connection may be brief or even unremarkable.  However, the way we place these little stars may also represent how we will choose to treat each of these encounters.

In my 2019 sky, I want to have many bright stars; each one of them representing treasured people and things in my life.  Some of the stars, like the morning and evening star, will be impossible to miss as they represent qualities and people that are certain in my life.  I want some of my stars to have the look of increasing in brightness even as I look at my sky.  These will represent people I want to develop more meaningful relationships with.  For certain, I will place a few minuscule specks of stars among the well-established ones.   These will be the stars that call for me to look carefully, underneath the surface, not overlook them or their potential treasures.  And I certainly will have at least one shooting star; to remind me to give my absolute best to some things.

A couple will be small but mighty stars, like little Benjamin.  He is only just beginning to understand how his shining affects others.  A year ago, he was but a speck in my sky; he now lights up our world.

If my 2019 is a blank sky, I hope that by the end of it I can make it so captivating that people will want to join me in gazing at it in amazement.  I want it to have Northern Lights dancing across it representing magic, growth, beauty, friends, happiness and of course, dancing.

I wish for you, a 2019 sky filled with exactly the stars, constellations and moons you pick to make your year the precise one of your imagination.

My inquiry for you this week is, ‘What star am I placing in my sky?’
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Elizabeth provides leadership and personal coaching for individuals and teams.  She creates and facilitates custom workshops for corporate, public and private groups.  Contact Elizabeth to help you discover how to create the sky of your imagination.
 
 

Early today while the sun was just peeking over the horizon in the east and I was driving toward the west to pick up the last of our Christmas groceries, I was lucky enough to see a beautiful shooting in the pinkish morning sky.  I thought about stars and the significance they can have in our lives.

I’ve always struggled a bit with the phrase ‘Be the star in your own life’.   It somehow conjures up images of me having to take centre stage.  Of having to draw the attention to myself.  Of having to be witty and smart and beautiful enough to make others want to stop what they are doing and take notice of me. 

The idea of what it means to be a star gets reinforced even more strongly when we think about the people we consider to be stars.  We even give them the name ‘stars’; movie stars.  This season the movie ‘A Star Is Born’, absolutely fantastic from all accounts by the way, cements the idea of a star being someone who is firmly in the spotlight.

Stars, in our context of popular culture, often have fame attached to them.  These are the people whose names each of us is familiar with.  We say things like, ‘She became a star in the nineties’ or ‘He shot to stardom last year’.  When you are a star, there seems to be a pressure associated with it.  It is as if when you are bestowed this title, it comes with an expectation; an expectation of some kind of perfection that is often defined by others.  The general public is shocked when they happen to get a glimpse of a ‘star’ just being a regular person.

For me being the star in my own life has always seemed like too much pressure. I’ve often thought that being a really good supporting actor is a better fit for me.  It allows me to be good but doesn’t put me in the awkward position of being selfish or giving the appearance of being a diva or being conceited.  No doubt this stems from my upbringing where being the star of the show was not encouraged.

A couple of weeks ago, however, I had the chance to listen to someone who has caused me to rethink the star thing.  We were at the Natalie McMaster Christmas concert at the Jubilee Auditorium. I had seen Natalie McMaster in the spring and had been incredibly moved by her fiddling, dancing and especially by her down-to-earth manner.  When I heard she was planning a Christmas show that included her husband Donnell Leahy and five of their seven children it didn’t take long for me to get tickets!

The show did not disappoint.  Natalie was her beautiful, relaxed, welcoming self.  She and Donnell played flawlessly together.  When they welcomed their children on to the stage to fiddle and dance, there was no question in my mind that the stage was filled with stars of the best kind.

There also happened to be a narrator involved in the concert and it was he who really got me thinking about stars.  He mentioned about how stars have been used for centuries by explorers to guide the way.   This idea had me pairing my idea of a person who is a star and the astrological usage of stars.

In the days of the early explorers, as they set out to explore the world, these adventurers would use stars to navigate.  The Big Dipper was commonly used to keep a ship on course or to get it back on course if it had strayed.  Other reports talk about the North Star being a guide because it does not dip below the horizon.

In the Christian faith there is a belief that it was a star that guided the wise people to the manger where the Baby Jesus lay.  The Three Kings, the Magi, saw the star in the East and followed it. 

The idea of these stars, these invaluable signposts, allow me to rethink my idea about being the star in my own life.  The reason these stars were so important was because they could be counted on to be themselves.  Explorers and Magi alike knew that they could depend on the stars to be in the same position night upon night.  The stars seemed to understand exactly what they were best at being and they performed without fail; not to be the brightest, not to have the best colour, not to have the best shape or to demand all the attention, but to be doing exactly the job they knew how to best do.  If this is what is required to be a star, I believe I can succeed in becoming one.

To be a star in one’s own life only requires us to understand who we are when we are living in alignment with our values and to steadfastly live this way to the best of our abilities.  When others think about us, or come to us for a visit, or call us, or ask us for help, they do so with the great hope that when they find us, we shine with the consistency they have come to expect.  They do not expect us to be the best or the flashiest or any other thing we are not.  They do hope to find us in our natural place in the world shining in a way that is unique to each of us.

This I can do.  I can live with integrity, showing up in all places in my life in the same way.  I can be counted on to treat people of all walks of life with dignity.  I can welcome princes and paupers into my world.  I suspect what I loved about the Leahy-McMaster family, besides the joy they brought to my heart with their music, was the certainty they portrayed that whether I happened to see them in a store, in their home or on a beautiful stage, I would be seeing the same people.  These truly were a family of stars.

In this week of Christmas, my hope is that each of us can be the star that is needed in our lives.  I hope we can proudly and confidently show up as ourselves.  I hope we can be a steady and safe guide for others.  I hope we find a place of great importance to show up exactly as ourselves, and to understand that this is all that is required of us.

May you each have a wonderfully peaceful, merry and star-filled Christmas.

My inquiry for you this week is, ‘What is my star?’
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Elizabeth provides leadership and personal coaching for individuals and teams.  She creates and facilitates custom workshops for corporate, public and private groups.  Contact Elizabeth to help you discover more ways to bring your star to your life.

Last weekend the CP Holiday Train pulled into Anderson Station in Calgary.  For the past twenty years, this train has begun its journey in late November, leaving the eastern parts of Canada and the USA, heading west and stopping at town after town on its way, ending the excursion before Christmas.   I can only guess that millions and millions of dollars of donations have sprung forth because of this initiative, along with more millions of food bank items.  As it chugs into each station, it shines a spotlight not only on the importance of each of us helping to take care of those who need a little boost but also on the incredible feeling we get when we know we have helped, even in a small way, someone else.

I also love the idea that each person’s individual donation is added to the collective, essentially rendering it anonymous.  It becomes less ‘That one is the box of cereal I donated’ and more ‘Look how we all just helped make this season a bit better’.   In this way, this tradition adds to the magic of the Christmas season. 

As I thought about the CP train this past week, I recognized that each of us takes a ‘train ride’ this holiday season too.  We each hop aboard our own Holiday Express.   Each of our trains stop at many different stations on the way. At some stops, we pause only long enough to make a quick pick-up.  These are the stops like the grocery store, or the mall, or even at a colleague’s office for a quick conversation.  Other times we get right off the train and do a little exploring.  These may be the longer stops, like ones where we visit family or old friends.  Or perhaps these are the stops where we take the time to go ice skating or play a board game.  Sometimes, of course, we even hitch a ride on ‘the bullet’; the train travelling so fast we barely recognize stations as we whiz past.

This year as we find ourselves absorbed by our own journey on our own Holiday Train, it’s worth remembering that just as it is important that our train arrives at all of our planned stations, it is equally important that we recognize that there are people anxiously awaiting us at each stop.  The CN Holiday Train would not have had a fraction of its success had it advertised that people could just show up at the station any time during the day, drop their food donation in a bin, and leave their money with the station master.  Part of the success of this amazing tradition is the anticipation of the train in each town and city. 

For starters, the train itself looks pretty sharp, decked out in sparkling coloured Christmas lights.  Each station prepares a celebration.   Musicians are on hand, filling the air with a wonderful energy.  Decorations are hung, letting us know something important is at hand.  Everyone is included and made to feel welcome and important.  The anticipation in the faces of the crowd let us know the preparations have been worth the effort.

As I recall some moments of Christmases past, I know there have been times when I have been so concerned with just getting into and out of each station, I have failed completely to notice that others have been awaiting my arrival, and that they have gone to great effort to make my stay, short or long, a good one.  Similarly, when I have acted as the ‘station’, where other trains have arrived at my door, I may not have put quite as much care into making arrivals feel as important as they really were.  I wonder if I may sometimes have stopped only long enough to pick up or drop off guilt and a feeling of inadequacy, rather than noticing all the other gifts at my disposal.

When our kids were very young, I heard about a wonderful little December idea that I soon adopted.  We always set out a Nativity display in our home.  It goes without saying this is not a tradition unique to our family.  The new idea was to set a basket of straw beside the stable.  The kids were told that during the month of December, we were each to think of things we could do to help out at home, or things that would be kindnesses to others.  As we quietly did each of these, we were to secretly, without telling anyone, take a piece of straw and place it under baby Jesus; the idea being that if we celebrated December with the spirit of the season, Baby Jesus would have a very soft bed to lay in on Christmas morning.  Of all the traditions we held, this one may have been my favourite.  There is nothing like taking a small piece of straw and placing it in a manger to force us to remember the importance of the little things at this very busy time of year. 

Each year starting from the day in early December when I would ask my friend, Cheryl, to bring me a little bag of straw from her ranch to use in our basket, right through to Christmas morning, this little Christmas tradition of ours was the most helpful for me to slow down my train, to be mindful of what I picked up at each station and of what I dropped off. 
May you too find just the right Holiday Train to  board for these next few weeks.

My inquiry for you this week is, ‘What train am I on?’
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Elizabeth provides leadership and personal coaching for individuals and teams.  She creates and facilitates custom workshops for corporate, public and private groups.  Contact Elizabeth to help you sort out the train schedule ensuring you stop at only the most important stations.

As the days count down to Christmas, I’ve been thinking it’s time to start my baking.  It’s one of the lead- up activities I love.  I learned to bake at a young age.   It reminds me of time spent in the kitchen with my mother and my sisters, feeling very grown up as I learned to blend and stir and add just the right amounts of ingredients.  Pie crusts were mastered when I was young and I still find myself surprised when a friend mentions that they are afraid to tackle this culinary delight; for us it was just a staple item. 

When I grew up and had my own family celebrating our own Christmases here in the West, I continued the tradition of baking, keeping some of our original recipes and adding some new delights.  Over time, I figured out our ‘favourites’ and for many years I repeated my faithful recipes.  Lately, I’ve tried some new ones and have let some others go.

Last weekend, our daughter, Kaitlyn, sent me a picture of a new shortbread cookie she was trying.  She mentioned she was testing out some new recipes this year.  As I thought about this idea of recipes, about whether the old tried and true ones or the new ones were ‘best’ it struck me that not only do each of us have favourite food recipes we use year over year, we may also have developed habitual recipes that we turn to.

It’s possible that just as Aunt Flo’s jellied salad isn’t as much of a treat as she once thought it was, perhaps some of our recipes need a revamp too!

When I think back to a familiar recipe I’ve used to prepare myself and our family for Christmas, there are many ingredients I would not change at all.  I always tried to make the month of December a fun one, starting with hanging up the Advent Calendar on December first. The day the calendar was hung was a big deal.  Jim made the calendar out of Bristol board, drawing a house and twenty-five opening doors on it.  Behind each door, before I went to bed each night, I would place a little sign behind the door that corresponded to the next day’s date telling the kids what Christmas activity we would be doing that day.  The activities could be as simple as ‘Christmas Hot Chocolate’ or something requiring more time like ‘Visit Heritage Park’.  The kids loved it and we loved it.  It forced us to make sure we did not put off doing things that would some day be looked back upon as traditions.

When our children went off to university, each of them chose a place of study that allowed them to experience living away from home.  As December approached each of those years, I knew that not only were they ‘too big’ for our old Advent Calendar, but they were not even home to open the doors.  I also figured out that if I was missing them and this tradition, then they were likely missing it too.  So, I modified it slightly and decided to include all of their roommates in the festivities.  I created the Twelve Days of Christmas, shopping to find little gifts that they could open each day with their roommates, and packaging it up and sending it off in time for the first of December.  Each gift had the date of opening on it.  Some gifts were just as simple as what we had done when the kids were tiny.  For Greg’s four ‘engineering type’ roommates, their first day required them each to make a paper chain so they could count down the days until they could go home.  I don’t remember all of the gifts but I think they enjoyed a Christmas movie together, wore Christmas socks and drank hot chocolate.  Greg said they gathered every evening after supper, before they settled down to study to open their little gift.  He told us that they absolutely loved it.  None of them wanted to miss the ritual of the evening.

I now understand that creating traditions and making Christmas visible were crucial ingredients in my Christmas recipe.
Another ingredient that I liked to sprinkle into my recipe was music.  I played carols in the house while we tackled chores that needed doing.  Baking and board games were added to the recipe in healthy doses. 

Generosity was a topping for my Christmas recipe.  We tried to model the gift of giving by feeding the animals that visited our yard, leaving carrots and apples for the deer and filling bird feeders for our feathered friends.  We bought and left secret gifts for people we thought might welcome them and we participated in school charity events.

When I look back, I notice I have switched out some ingredients from my old recipes these days.  Whereas I once needed the order of the Calendar to help me get things done and to teach the kids the importance of tradition, I now bake with a good supply of flexibility.  As our kids have families of their own to consider, I want them to create their own traditions and memories and so I’m happy to adjust some of my own.

I know too that I’ve completely eliminated some of the old ingredients.  Perhaps I’ve noticed the ‘best before’ date and realized that trying to keep using these might not create the end product I’m imagining.

This past week, our daughter Kaitlyn, put out her new Advent Calendar for little Benjamin.   Jim made it for their family.  This time, he could afford to build it out of wood and he had the advantage of time.  He worked on it over the winter last year.  Ben is too young to understand any of this.  Not the activities or the gifts.  He is not too young to experience the feeling of it.  And I love that this particular favourite recipe has been passed along to a new generation.  It is updated and modernized and yet it is completely the same.

As you enter this second week of the Christmas month, you’ll likely start pulling out old recipes of your own.  Hopefully you’ll use only ingredients that will feed the true Christmas spirit in your life.

My inquiry for you this week is, ‘What ingredients shall I use today?’
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Elizabeth creates and facilitates custom workshops for corporate, public and private groups.  She provides leadership and personal coaching for individuals and teams.  Contact Elizabeth to help you uncover your most authentic recipe for creating your best results.
 

This week I’ve been working on a Christmas gift; a photo book of our trip to Scotland.  In the age of digital pictures, we often take many shots on our holiday, then come home and save them in a neatly labeled file on our computer.  I can’t recall ever inviting anyone to come and sit and look at them with me. 

In the old days, our cameras were fitted with film and part of the excitement following the trip was sending the film away and waiting for the prints to arrive.  Of course, we had no way of knowing which, if any, of the pictures would turn out.  But when the package did arrive, we delighted in sharing our memories with anyone who would look.

So, this week, I sat down at my computer with three files open, one from Jim’s camera, one from Victoria’s and mine.  I wanted to journal our bike trip day by day so I was searching for just the right pictures that might capture not only the beautiful scenery we cycled past but also the feelings we had while we were together.

Once I had finally assembled my chosen pictures to correspond with the appropriate days, and with any luck had placed them in the right sequence, I was ready to do my final editing.  As I cropped and placed the final photos in place, I remembered that for photo albums I’ve created in the past, I’ve put a miniature picture, and sometimes a quote, on the very back cover.  This time I knew what mini-picture I wanted and niggling in my mind was the wisp of a phrase I had seen and loved in the Edinburgh airport that I thought might be a perfect ending to the book; if only I could think of it.

A google search turned up nothing.  I knew I would know the phrase as soon as I saw it.  It had been written above the door to the departure lounge and when I had read it, it brought tears to my eyes and filled my heart.  But for the life of me, I could not remember.  Luckily, I do know that often when I’m trying too hard to recall something, I have little luck, but when I allow my mind relax and carry on with my day, crucial bits of information will fall into it at unsuspecting times.
You can imagine my complete lack of surprise when I was blow drying my hair and suddenly thought, ‘Haste Ye Back’.

Haste Ye Back.  To me, this brings to mind images not only of good friends bidding each other goodbye, wishing their time together could have been longer, but it also stirred up thoughts of events and moments and even things from our lives that go by so quickly we wish we could hang on to them a bit longer or that we could bring the essence of them back into our present day lives.

I think of the many years we would visit my parents on their farm in Ontario after Jim and I moved to Alberta.  In those days we returned home once each year, first with no children and then with Kaitlyn and then Gregory, staying about two weeks and splitting our time between our two families.  Each year, when it came time to say goodbye to my Dad, he always fought tears and once we were in our car, he hastened to the barn to chop some wood, each blow of the ax lessening the blow of our leaving.  Had he been a Scotsman, I might picture him whispering ‘Haste Ye Back’.

With December now upon us and Christmas only a few weeks away, I recognize this time of year as one when I wish I could hasten back to moments and feelings in my life when things felt ‘just right’.  The hands of time go faster and faster each year and sometimes I wish I could talk to past Christmas seasons saying, ‘Haste Ye Back’.

When we moved from our acreage a few years ago, Christmas just did not feel like Christmas in the new house.  This year I finally realized one of the pieces I was missing. On the acreage, Jim and I would spend one entire day each November, before the temperature got too low, decorating about fifteen spruce trees on our front and back lawn.  When we drove down our driveway, they welcomed us.  Whether we were sitting in our living room or doing dishes in the kitchen, we could enjoy them through our windows.  When I would coil them up and pack them in boxes after the season, it was if I would whisper to them, ‘Haste Ye Back’. 

In the new house, there was simply no way to replicate this.  In fact, the first year in the new house we gave away our many strings of lights, realizing we had no place for them.

For the last two years Jim has hinted that he’d love it if we would put lights on the lone evergreen tree on our front lawn.  I’ve resisted; the tree is over thirty feet high and whereas we always did our own light display on the acreage, we would never be able to do this one ‘right’ ourselves.  Finally, this year I came to the realization that one of the things I was missing was those lights.  While we could never recreate what we had once had, we could create something new; something that would take our hearts back to a place of fond memories, and give us permission to make new ones.  Jim made the phone call and drove over to Canadian Tire to buy the new lights and this weekend we are loving our beautifully lit tree. 

Such a small thing to bring back such a big feeling.

This busy December, I invite each of you to look back into the box of Christmas memories you hold in your mind and whisper ‘Haste Ye Back’ to the traditions, customs and friendships that you still might have room for in this year’s festivities.  When Victoria opens her gift of the photo album on Christmas, I hope she is hastened back to our most wonderful time together this past Fall.

My inquiry for you this week is, ‘Who or what is waiting to hear me whisper, ‘Haste Ye Back’?’
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Elizabeth creates and facilitates custom workshops for corporate, public and private groups.  She provides leadership and personal coaching for individuals and teams.  Contact Elizabeth to help hasten you back to the values that serve you best in life and business.