For Auld lang Syne, my friends for auld lang syne, whether I am on my own or out with friends this song always comes to mind on New Years Eve. We think of time gone by.

Should auld acquaintance be forgot
And never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot
And the days of auld lang syne?

For me part of the new year coming is to retreat and to renew. I took a weekend this December and reviewed my notebooks and sketchbooks for the past few years, focusing mainly on the last year. I went through the notebooks and wrote down everything that I wanted to remember in them in my latest book. I book marked sketches that I wanted to go back to.

I also sat down and wrote down everything that mattered from the year past. I wrote about small things I did to the house & the studio. I wrote what I was pleased about and what I could do better. I took the time to step back and reflect and take in what the year had been. At the top of every page I asked myself a question and bullet pointed the answers. I could tell you my questions, but the important thing of course, is to come up with your own questions, the questions that matter to you.

We cannot learn from our lives if we don't reflect upon them. There is great importance in stepping back and reflecting. We can see what we have accomplished, where we have fallen short, what has mattered. In knowing these things we learn what to do more of, and what to set aside. 

When I reviewed my notebooks from a few years ago I saw that I had written, "Renewing my relationship with Terry Cove" as one of the good things that happened.  We were always friends but in the last few years we have worked together and reconnected again, and it has been good. I enjoy her company, and we so easily fell back into an easy trust. We renewed an old friendship.

Sometimes all we need to do is renew what is already there within us.

Renew.

We do not always have to  come up with new thoughts and ideas. We can reconnect with what we already know. And to do this we must step back and reflect, and we must learn and sometimes relearn what matters and what is important to us.

To renew is not to go back to things the same way but to make them new again. We add, take away, and  transform old ideas and experiences so they find a new home in our hearts. We find the good in what already matters deeply to us and to focus on it. Renewal is essentially the art of creativity. I do it time and time again. In my rugs and in my life.

It is because I retreat that I am able to go strongly forward and grow. 

This time of year, like I have done for years, I prepare myself for the next year with three simple words. And I will carry those words into the new year, paired together as they are, the three "R"' s, and I hope they will help me savour what I already know and love what I have yet to learn.

 Retreat. Reflect. Renew.

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