Transparency

Transparency: let your vulnerability show.

I turned this page on its side and upside-down while trying to decide what it was all about. The thing I finally realised was that the layers were transparent and it was easy to see what lay beneath.

When we are transparent we let our vulnerability show rather than trying to hide it. Transparency is another facet to authenticity. To be our true authentic self we cannot hide what we are.

Remembrance

Remembrance can creep up on you.

There are small things that remind you. That favourite author. A note in the margin of a book. A place where you drank tea and ate cake. A phrase, an accent - just the small stuff.

Swirling thoughts

My thoughts swirl and are difficult to pin down.

The background for this page is a gelli-print stuck to the page. I love the swirly pattern which is the ghost print made after using a mask. The suggested cloud shapes and the swirling just felt like my thoughts - like knitting fog or pinning down clouds. There are different shapes and marks, just a variety of bits and pieces that don't necessarily seem to fit together. Like the inside of my head at the moment.

Menopause sucks!

Just thought I'd share that 😳

Foundations

What is your foundation?

In mining my word for the year - authentic/authenticity - I started thinking about foundations. If 'authentic' is defined as ' made or done in the original way' then it is necessary to work out what the foundations are. What is the 'original way'?

This page has a cross in its background. There is a lot of other 'noise' on the page, but the base, the foundation, is a cross. Sometimes we have to peel away the extraneous parts and remember what it's really all about. What are the parts that cannot be dispensed with without destroying the original?

Authentic - digging deeper

Digging deeper on my word for the year. Authentic - made or done in the original way or in a way that faithfully resembles the original.

And isn't that what Christians are supposed to do - live a life that resembles that of Christ? It seems that authenticity means stripping away those extraneous things like masks and walls that we have built and getting back to the 'original factory settings'.

The path of life

The path of life. It isn't straight and smooth.

The pink across the centre of this page made me think about the path of life. It has wiggles. It has blind ends that seem to be the start of a path in another direction, but then stop, maybe showing a momentary distraction that leads off course for a while. The edges aren't well-defined, making the path narrow in some parts and broader in others. But all the time it continues in roughly the same direction.

Authentic = genuine

Authentic - genuine; truly what something is said to be.

To be authentic, one must put away any masks and be what one appears to be, like a silver birch, that cannot be mistaken for any other tree, even from some distance. Living a life of authenticity requires an openness and straightforwardness that makes life simple and vulnerable all at the same time.

Word of the year explored

I picked 'authenticity' as my word for the year, and am doing a few pages to explore the word.

The first definition is 'of undisputed origin'.

To live a life of authenticity I have to recognise my origin, to know where I come from and whose I am. I am a child of God and knowing that should inform how I live.

Word for 2020

After some thought, I have chosen 'authenticity' as my word for 2020.

Being the 'me' I was made to be.

Going through the menopause means there are days when my head feels fuzzy and I'm not sure who I am anymore. In 2020 I want to hold on to - maybe rediscover - who I was made to be and to take those opportunities that arise where I can be the best me. When we are all the best versions of ourselves the world benefits from that.

Happy new year to you all!

Similar yet different

Similar yet different.

That's what we all are.

We are all unique, yet we share so much more than we differ in.