What will you cultivate in the coming year?

Happy New Year! With the dawning of a new calendar year, we have a ripe opportunity for checking in with our vision and intentions for living our spiritual or philosophical values and priorities, and for how we might want to 'be the change' we wish to see in the world -- and do it in our own unique, authentic way.

Though we might occasionally doubt or question it, judging from what we see happening in the world around us, most if not all religious, spiritual, wisdom, and philosophical traditions have guidelines for 'engaged spirituality' -- or 'walking your talk'.

Some traditions call this 'engaged spirituality', and others call it 'cultivation'. Some don't call it anything other than living 'the Way'. What weaves through all of these paths is a conscious intention to have a more whole, healed, and healing effect on the world, including one's own little corner of the world.

In choosing to cultivate 'higher values' such as loving-kindness, conscious intention, compassion, graciousness, gracefulness, creativity, joyful responsibility, consideration, integrity, gratefulness, and other 'virtues', we immediately shift our perspective, our energy, and our experience ... and others' experience of us. The more we 'cultivate' -- just as one might cultivate the soil, seeds, and plants in a garden -- the more our experience and effect becomes refined and lovely.

Take a moment to consciously choose a few 'higher values' you'd like to cultivate during the coming year -- ways you'd like to be, feel, and have others experience when they interact with you; ways you'd like to 'gift' the world around you and, through your ripple effect through the collective mind, the world at large.

Then, find ways to integrate those values as mantras, intentions and practices in your prayers, meditations, vision, goals, day to day behaviors, and aligned projects. You'll find before long that 'cultivation' is far from a dead or laborious practice, though it may be more challenging than anything else.

Despite the challenge, though, you'll find a sense of meaning, a growing gracefulness and effectiveness, and a greater sense of peacefulness and purpose that is independent of passing circumstance.

The muses and guides at Ivy Sea can help you 'engage' with your higher potentials, purpose, vision, and values in your life and livelihood during the coming year. You'll find a wealth of inspiring resources at Ivy Sea Online, and can call us to schedule a co-creative vision or right-livelihood consultation.

Wishing you very well in the coming year! May it begin in a bright and blessed way for you, and grow into a part of your journey that is rich and joyful.

Sincerely,
Jamie

Jamie Walters is the founder of Ivy Sea and the author of, among other things, Big Vision, Small Business, the critically acclaimed conscious-enterprise and spirit-centered right-livelihood guide published by Berrett-Koehler. She is a respected horizon-walker and guide for humane business, right livelihood, and engaged or embodied spirituality -- including the embodiment and expression of the Divine Feminine, and a 'reconnection' to and expression of your own brilliant Divine Spark.

Learn more about Jamie and Ivy Sea at Ivy Sea Online.

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