Words from the Heart

  Last year my word for the year was "Dance." I didn't do much actual dancing but emotionally, spiritually and metaphysically, I was dancing around all the craziness of 2025. The last days of the year were a gentle slow waltz into a year of blessings. In 2026, I will be doing my best to bring blessings to all in everything I do. I will also practice accepting the blessings of others with grace and humility, remembering that receiving is as much of a blessing as giving.  May all who read these words find 2026 to be filled with the blessings of Peace, Hope, Joy, and most of all Love. Blessings!

  After "grounding" this past year, 2025 has me dancing! This will be interesting, since I am trying to find reasons to dance in the year ahead. Usually, people dance when they are happy, but in doing some research - I always research my words - I found there are dances for when you aren't overjoyed with what is happening in the world!  For example, the tarantella was an original traditional dance related to being bitten by a tarantula! According to a video on the history of this dance, it was believed it was a condition that was caused by being bitten by a spider and by dancing the venom of the spider was removed.  Other Indigenous dances are done for healing sadness, anger, confusion, and despair.  Dancing does more for us than simply expressing our emotions. When we dance, we improve our overall health, we produce endorphins, which help us to balance our emotions, we improve brain function, breathing, and much more. While we certainly can dance by ourselves, danc...

Grandmother Moon on January 1, 2024, at 7:30 AM   Last year, my word was "reflect," which was very insightful. I did a great deal of reflection - about my life, the world, my beliefs, etc. I learned that I have very deeply rooted beliefs in justice, acceptance, and the Divine's love for all of us. I also learned that at times, I can be my own worst enemy because I let the monkey mind convince me that I am not able to do things. I am getting better at quieting this down.  This year, my word is "grounded." Like many of the words we have in the English language, grounded has multiple meanings. This adjective can mean that you are in a state of balance and harmony, or it can mean that you are incapable of movement, as in the pilot was grounded due to fog. Of course, I will be holding the first meaning in my consciousness as I travel this next voyage around the sun.  Being grounded, or as some call it "earthing," takes practice and work, as does most everyt...

Last year, my word was "savor." I felt it was a great reminder to be in the moment and linger with life, not rush through to the next task or undertaking.  While the days since that particular post seem to have flown by, I feel that I did a pretty good job of living in the now, most of the time.    Last night, as I hit the Word of the Year generator , I was not happy with my "inspirational" word - toast, so for the first time, I hit the generator again. The second time, I got "hope." More like it, I thought.  But then, as often happens when I need to pause and think about things, I was led to check the etymology of "toast," which I was thinking of in the noun form, not the verb form. The etymology states, " toast - a call to drink to someone's health," 1690s (but said by Steele, 1709, to date to the reign of Charles II) ." With the pandemic still raging, what better thing to do than to wish someone good health? Therefore, for 2...

  Last year, my word for the year was "visit."  Little did I know that 2020 was going to test my ability to re-imagine just what that meant! Shortly after the February first of 2020, I quarantined due to my age and the fact that both Roger and I have health issues that would be problematic if we were to contract COVID.   My last visit to anyone was with my daughters and grandchildren during February vacation.  The pictures I took then have kept me focused on the reason I am not traveling, not working outside the home and not meeting with people except outside and from a distance. For a people person, visiting with others is like air. We need it to live. So, I became adept at "visiting" via Zoom and talking to friends outside 6 feet or more away with masks on. I also found that visiting via snail mail was a joy I had almost forgotten. Letters to and from my grandchildren brought rays of sunshine for both Roger and I to bask in as the days got darker. In addition,...

Front door of a B and B in Ireland (c) 2014 Rev. Linda M. Rhinehart Neas What a surprise to have the random word picker give me the word "visit" for my 2020 word of the year just after I was thinking of our trip to Ireland back in 2014 and our dear friends who live there! Visit is something I enjoy doing. However, I have never really looked at the word - its meaning or origin. After all, it is one of those words that we use daily without thinking much about, right? First off, visit can be used as both a noun and a verb.  As a noun, it means: the act of visiting, or having a chat or talk.  As a verb, visit means: to go to and stay with (a person or family) or at (a place) for a short time for reasons of sociability, politeness, business, curiosity, etc.; to stay with as a guest; to make a visit; to talk or chat casually. The origins of the word are from the Latin " visitare " which means "to go to see."   As a teacher, minister and wri...

(c) 2018 Linda M. Rhinehart Neas For the past five years, I have picked a word that I have used as a focus for the coming year. To pick the word, I have put various words in a hat and picked one out; randomly opened to a page in a book and used the first word I saw; and chosen a certain numbered word of an email. This year, I used a random word for the year tool online .  This year's word is "know."  What I find interesting about this is that last year, my word was intuition. The ability to intuit things is different from knowing. Intuition is about trusting feelings around something; whereas, "to know," according to dictionary.com means: to perceive or understand as fact or truth; to apprehend clearly and with certainty: I know the situation fully.   to have established or fixed in the mind or memory: to know a poem by heart; Do you know the way to the park from here? to be cognizant or aware of: I know it. My intuition tells me I have a lot ...