ANOTHER YEAR - Towards 2018 festival

If you're still interested, I'm still working on 'The Other Big C Challenge' - is it profane to mention both in the one sentence?
Anyway, this is just an alert to say:
(a) For me the challenge continues, and intensifies as the days shorten.
(b) This year I am using the support of Linda, a counsellor working on a contract in TA style.
According to Muriel James in Perspectives in Transactional Analysis (1998, San Francisco; TA Press, p82ff) contracts will

• Involve Mutual Consent bilateral (two-sided)
• Valid consideration (named benefits)
• Competency (ability to carry out the terms)
• Lawful (doesn't include breaking the law)

A TA contract has five questions to be answered:

1. What do I want that would enhance my life?
2. What specific change do heed to make to get what I want?
3. What am I willing to do to effect this change?
4. How will others know when I have made this change?
5. How might I sabotage myself?

Another question I would like to add
6. How will I reward myself when I have done/achieved this change?

This process will not fully began until next week (Tuesday November 20) but writing this blog, and going over the three artist notebooks of the original EN-JOYING Christmas project represent on the one hand a form of 'preparation' and on the other hand, a salututory insight that for whatever reason, I still identify with many of the feelings and negative ideas from 2012. Maybe Linda will spot a possible cause that I am hiding from myself (discounting)

Meanwhile, I am thinking a little about the wording for the contract that Linda extracted from our conversation, something about making a decision that my Child ego-state will have one enjoyable day on Christmas Day.

Light and Darkness at dawn - Nov 2018

2017 POSTSCRIPT

Interestingly, Christmas 2017 was a quietly 'good' Christmas, I think part of the cause had to do with the Recovery adage"Lower your standards and improve your performance"
Bu there were other things I did differently also.

• I again did Christmas shopping in November with Hazel, for the second year running. She loves the process, and her company makes it a little easier for me. Actually we didn't get everything done this year, but I didn't let myself concentrate on what wasn't done. Instead, I wrapped and labeled what I'd bought. Then over the next few weeks, I got items when I was doing my weekly shopping, and in many cases, wrapped them the day I bought them, or soon after. Doing this meant I wasn't creating the 'Unfinished business' that doesn't help my mental health.
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Fleece Tunnel

• I had a HelpX person, John, who stayed Dec 13 to 23. I didn't organize to be so busy in those days - he just asked for them way back in October I think, and I just said yes. So instead of my attention being on the forthcoming "C-day", all I was thinking about was keeping him occupied for that ten days, as well as being involved with him in bedding down the fuchsias for the winter. Not only was it very healthy for me to have this particular piece of 'unfinished business' out of the way, but our progress exceeded my expectations, and we made a successful fleece tunnel who has stayed standing through winds over 40 kph.

And a major task that John did was first of all to 'accompany' me as I went through the decorations to decide which should go to Vincents charity shop, and which I wanted to keep, and then he took on the whole decorating task, including checking the lights etc.

Lumenaria

•  It was a huge weight off my mind to have someone who could climb high if needed without the kind of risk I would be taking at my 80 years.

Christmas tree

• 

  Window lights

  
  

  Somehow I managed to keep the 'question mark' intact over each day, not making plans, but just taking each day as it came. Phone calls, hangouts, family meals, emails - all kept me in contact with people which was healthy too.And I took the whole Christmas card business in part acts. It may be that I missed out on some people, but hopefully not too many.
• Now in early January I have something else to occupy my mind - I am in the process of organizing to have a cataract removed, and this will entail some trips to Belfast as the Irish HSE has very long waiting lists.
• So taking down and packing away the decorations is also being done in 'Part Acts', again keeping my tension at manageable levels. There are still tasks undone, but I'm not fussing about them
• Probably best of all, I have the Johnstown gathering to look forward to on Saturday. This is a meeting of those who contribute to Garden.ie , the online gardening club. We Swap plants, have a meal, raffle, Kris Kindle, and shop to the limits of our budget.

God is good - I am very grateful for having had a quiet and peaceful Christmas.

NAVIGATION OF THIS PROJECT

SUGGESTION re Navigation
It is May 21 2017. I'm 'killing time' looking at old blog entries.

Looking at this one about coping with Christmas, I realize that the blog format of 'latest posting foremost', really doesn't suit a narrative project like this one - or maybe not most of my projects.
So here is a work around - might reduce some FRUSTRATION.

1. Know that each posting is a unit in itself - that means while the images and comments are in sequence within that posting, the next posting will be chronologically before the one you have just read, and can be annoying.

2. SO ...here's something you can do.

(a) to your right on the screen, there is a menu of the posts in reverse order year by year.
(b) Expand each year by clicking on the little arrow to the left of each year, then the arrow at the left of each month
(c)You will now see the entries for each month - click on the bottom entry to get to the beginning of the story.

POSTSCRIPT in February 2013

I have been unhappy about the abrupt ending of the project and came up with this idea of finishing off with some Candlemas (Feb 2) which in the old days marked the end of the Christmas season - when the Blessed Mother went for her six-weeks-check-up to the temple where the priests seem to have had medical functions also (remember the leper whose cure had to be 'certified' by him going to 'show himself to the priests)

When I made the experimental luminaria, I had wanted to make a big show of them in the front garden (seeing that the solar lights which I originally wanted to use didn't work, possibly because the winter daylight wasn't enough to charge them!)

But the darkness overtook me, and I didn't do anything.
A few weeks later I remembered Candlemas. I was feeling a good bit better and got down to the task which proved enjoyable after all.

So at long last on last Saturday, I galvanized myself into lighting them.
The high wind blew them out, almost as soon as I put them in place.


In the end, I brought them into the porch, and enjoyed double value when they were reflected in the patio door.






By the time I went to bed, only one was still lighting ... that's what I get for buying 'bargain nightlights'









In the cold light of next morning, only the empties were left, still reflected in the glass.

December Pictures

These images (click the image to enlarge) are evidence to me that I actually did make some moments, even if I didn't let myself fully appreciate them.
Yes, in each case I had to 'command the muscles' to make myself do these things, but in the end, I have to admit that I had some marginal satisfaction for having done them.

I attended a birthday party.

I bought one piece of tinsel and wrapped it around the sculpture in our porch - making it look like a pregnant lady, appropriate for Advent!

I photographed a dawn heron on a roof at the back of our house.

I attended the winter festival 'Unwrapped' at our local art centre. The lantern second from the left is one I made at a workshop back in November.

The festival theme was Oscar Wilde's Selfish Giant, here seen as an enormous puppet.

This shows the Advent Taize service at St Dominic's, our local church. 

Again St Dominic's - this time for the annual Carol Service.










The weeping fig (ficus benjamina) serves as a C-tree - with mural of Picasso's Guernica in the background.

Zillions of Christmas cards received and displayed.
Also wrote our Christmas letter to family and friends - no idea how many emailed and posted.

The finished crib - no white lights left in the shops - maybe next year ....

Close up of the crib - after all, this is what it is all supposed to be about.

I bought and wrapped the presents - not all distributed yet - but the New Year is long ....

Lights in the porch, reflected in the glass.

Researched the 'luminaria' on the internet, and made this trial version.

This is how it looked when first lit. (Have to admit it extinguished itself soon after this image was taken, but I got it lighting again, using a better quality nightlight.

Post-C .... still ....

Reminder - you can click on the images to enlarge them!

In the end, this is how I got through the toughest days - as silent as I could without being rude!

The darkness was intense, but being in a 'star-shaped' hole probably made it marginally easier

I often get relief once the day itself has passed, but not this year.

Nevertheless, the road is long until it twists back on itself for next year!








Yes, I can hear people saying:
You fought a good fight, you didn't fail, you can endorse yourself for effort, not for the outcome.

and the shame and guilt come from accusation - who is accusing you?

But feelings/thoughts are what they are!

In the midst of all this darkness, I make up this 'luminaria'.

Despite heavy winds, and some rain, the little nightlight burned itself out, though quicker than normally.

Maybe I'll do some more tomorrow, to make up for the solar lights that never got to work.

Definitely an improvement!

As you can see in the last posting, the day didn't start well. However, I did have one list, so decided to go an buy something off that list, which I did.

However, I still felt low, so on passing a bargain bookshop, wandered in to see if there was a little something I might buy to cheer myself up.

Bonanza, I found something for almost everyone I needed to buy for.

So, even without buying for myself, I am indeed much 'cheered up'

Even better, as soon as I got home I started wrapping what I had bought, completing the task this morning. Yes, it really is true that when we make and follow through on a decision, it does indeed steady us.