Word and Grace- New Year 2025
Words of the Year, Poem, Book Ritual, Writing Updates, & so much more
Many blessings to you for the new year! I’m thinking about words that will guide me this year, and I bet you are too. If you’re like me, you ponder several words before settling on one, and even then, doubt that you’ve chosen wisely. I hear my grandma: “be careful what you wish for, because you’ll get it!” So, I approach words with caution.
Sometimes, it takes a while for words to appear when I need them. For example, I took this photo last October while on a writing retreat. I’m still contemplating the words that will adequately describe this scene as I work to finalize a creative nonfiction piece about it.
Because I can’t settle on just one word for this year, I have two. I’m sharing them with you in hopes they, and my process for deciding on them, are helpful to you as you choose you word. Also, keep reading for some news for the new year.
Word is one of my two words for the year. Word. How many words do I say each day (too many, and surely too many of the same ones)? Word. How many do I think each day (too many, and most of them over-thought)? Word. How many do I write each day (not enough, never enough)?
Nature writer Robert Macfarlane keeps up with words that are dropped from the Oxford Junior Dictionary each year. Treehugger says some of the dropped words from the OJD in recent years include: “acorn, adder, ash, beech, bluebell, buttercup, catkin, and conker. Adios cowslip, cygnet, dandelion, fern, hazel, and heather. No more heron, ivy, kingfisher, lark, mistletoe, nectar, newt, otter, pasture, and willow. And in their place came the new kids on the block, words like blog, broadband, bullet-point, celebrity, chatroom, committee, cut-and-paste, MP3 player, and voice-mail.” Losing words makes us poorer, particularly when we lose words related to nature.
My choosing “Word” for this year is a prayer. I pray I will be more careful with the words I feel, think, say (especially to myself), and write. I want to broaden my vocabulary, not narrow it. I want my words to honor all of us, and Mother Earth herself.
Grace is my second word for 2025. Over the past year, the word Grace has bubbled up in strange ways, and I’ve learned to trust those nudges. I’ve written about Grace in the past, but a new relationship with this word is emerging for me.
Nearly 50 years ago, I found Rachel Faro’s second album in a cut-out album bin for a dollar. Her song “Free Grace” from that album is still one of my favorite songs. Back then, I had a beautiful loom and loved weaving, so Rachel’s metaphor spoke deeply to me.
We wove some bright rainbow strands across the loom of days,
My, my, my how time will fly, the distance comes between,
But there’s love of love that stands alone, always has been, always will be.
Free grace, undying love, ring those morning bells.
Free grace, undying love, ring those morning bells.
I’ve come to think of Grace as gifts of kindness and acceptance and, sometimes, forgiveness, given to us from a universal source and from each other when we may not believe we are deserving of such gifts, or even understand that we need such gifts.
Word and Grace. I believe these words will work together to teach me to trust guidance I’m given in these uncertain times. They remind me to pay attention to the power of words, the strength of grace, and the eternity of love. They remind me I have a responsibility to treat words tenderly, and to both accept and offer grace gently as I strive to become a better word weaver.
I’m so happy to connect with you and I’m grateful that you subscribe to this newsletter! If you missed my last newsletter, you can read it here.
Light Returning-Winter Solstice 2024
Speaking of Writing Words
If one of your goals this year is to write better and more, I highly recommend author Janisse Ray’s courses. Janisse truly cares about her students’ work and is so supportive! Here’s a link to her website with information about her work and upcoming offerings: https://janisseray.com/
And Speaking of More Words
I’m so grateful for your response to my newest works in County Lines: A Literary Journal. Three new poems - "Sacred Geometry: A Trilogy of Connection" and my creative non-fiction piece "Sunday Fatback" are my offerings among the works by many other talented North Carolina writers. While you can get this book on Amazon, I beg you to order it through your local independent bookstores. I'm sure Pomegranate Books would be happy to order it for you and ship it to you! I’m always grateful when you read my work!
Here's one of the poems in the trilogy of poems published in County Lines. I hope you’ll read the other two!
If I’d Known
Whorls on my fingertips, on conch shells,
tell hallowed stories of divine ratios.
Scotch bonnets and chambered nautiluses
speak of spiraling connections among us all.
My back curls in harmony with cresting waves,
sea and body, in a holy dance together,
as I dive into a breaker, rise, and float,-
drifting out beyond the swells, safe.
Hieroglyphics etched on lettered olives,
on the lines of my face, on sand-sculpted dunes.
If I’d known in high school that shapes are sacred,
I would have made better grades in geometry.
Reading Ritual
You probably know how much I love ritual, so it won’t surprise you that I have seasonal reading rituals. I love the time between Solstice and New Year’s Day, when I have time to read several books for the zillionth time. I reread C.S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia, Helen Hoover’s The Gift of the Deer, and Margaret Craven’s I Heard the Owl Calls My Name.
The cover below is from my very old, battered edition of this book that continues to teach me how much I still need to learn from nature and from people whose way of life is a continual prayer of thanksgiving.
Click on the links below to read my most recent works in Salvation South:
“A Tale of Two Hauntings”
https://www.salvationsouth.com/a-tale-of-two-hauntings-essay-deb-bowen/
“Let No One Turn You Around”
https://www.salvationsouth.com/let-no-one-turn-you-around-joan-baez-essay-deb-bowen/
“Sunday Fatback”
https://www.salvationsouth.com/sunday-fatback-essay-deb-bowen/
“The Coyote’s Journey”
https://www.salvationsouth.com/the-coyotes-journey-nature-essay-deb-bowen/
“Takin’ Up a Poundin’”
https://www.salvationsouth.com/takin-up-a-poundin-christmas-story-deb-bowen/
“Tidal Wave Terror”
https://www.salvationsouth.com/ground-truth-from-the-climate-reckoning-janisse-ray/
“Where I’m From: Seven Decades in Seven Scenes”
https://www.salvationsouth.com/where-im-from-seven-decades-in-seven-scenes-deb-bowen-poem/
“Mending Nets”
https://www.salvationsouth.com/mending-nets-north-carolina-barrier-island/?mc_cid=c4bb217ffc&mc_eid=fae2a9a622
“A Talisman for Poseidon”
https://www.salvationsouth.com/a-talisman-from-poseidon-hurricane-donna-1960/
Podcast
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Deb Bowen, Author
PsychicTeachers
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Just One More Thing Before You Go
“…my father understood, at a deeply spiritual level, what was to come. ‘There’s a reason every being on earth is alive. It’s not right to sacrifice one for another’ … I didn’t understand then that a way of life, a way of livelihood, could change so quickly. I didn’t comprehend the impact of over-fishing and netting. I did, however, realize that a moment in time, an irretrievable treasure of my childhood, was lost on the incoming tide of too many people, too much greed, on a tiny barrier island.”
-Excerpt from Mending Nets, published in Salvation South
Thank you!
Deb, thank you for your words of support and love. Your kindness is grace to me.