Time to put on your thinking caps! I know it’s only April, and that 2009 is still a long way off, but this is about the time when we traditionally start thinking about next year’s calendar. It’s quite a process. First, we need a theme. Then we start searching for the perfect quotes and poems. Then I sift though our photo archives, looking for those that might go magically with the new quotes. Then we set up shoots for the photos we don’t have and then, invariably, find MORE quotes for the new photos. It’s a wonderful, meditative process in which I lose myself year after year – beautiful images, inspiring quotations – the sifting, the sorting, the weighing and balancing. I love every moment of it.

There is a whole group of people who participate in this process every time – people who love poetry, photography, the whole concept of putting thoughts and images together in a unified theme. I wait for their contributions each year and delight in sharing the decisions with them. You are welcome to join us!

The themes we are considering this year include:

Generosity

Focus

Knowledge

Experience

Journey

Often the theme is suggested by the discovery of one particularly wonderful quotation or poem and we build the rest of the year around it. The idea of Journey came from a poem Anne Bruce, our Scottish Speech Therapist (and voracious reader) shared with me:

When you travel
You find yourself
Alone in a different way
More attentive now
To the self you bring along,
Your more subtle eyes watching
You abroad;
And how what meets you
Touches that part of the heart
That lies low at home

When you travel
A new silence goes with you
And if you listen
You will hear
What your heart would
Love to say.

A journey can become a sacred thing.

John O’Donoghue

I’m waiting for your response: ideas, thoughts, suggestions, photos, poetry, please!