As I complete another circle round the sun I find myself contemplating the art of celebration. Consider these words which are full of wisdom and reflect on how much you love yourself:
Celebrate who you are in your deepest heart. Love yourself and the world will love you.
Amy Lee mccree
They really resonated with me because a few weeks ago I was getting ready for my forthcoming birthday and I discovered that both my daughters had sporting engagements the very same day; the first of which required her to leave at 6 am! At least one activity was going to require either my husband or I to take one of them there. Initially, I could not believe it and then when I pressed pause I realised it was a sign for me to reflect on what I really wanted for my birthday. And it became clear that actually what I needed was to gift myself a full day and night away on a solo retreat! I would never have come to that conclusion if my family had been around for the bank holiday so their sporting commitments were a gift that prompted me to listen to my soul and take myself off.
I needed to give myself the space to reflect on the past year and more than that take stock of many things. I recalled how flat I had felt on my birthday last year. This was due to an expectation that I had carried unwittingly. I was running a couple of sangrias and I had hoped the members of these groups would be part of my celebration. In fact, only two of them knew it was my birthday and that was because LinkedIn told them. It was a great reminder that actually we create our own joy and that others love us to the extent that we love ourselves. And deeper than that all the times we look outside ourselves for love we will be disappointed; the root of unconditional love comes from residing in our heart without expectation. And at the point the miracles start to happen. This year the whole experience was very different.
Why is celebration so rare?
I also began to reflect on what celebration means and why throwing a big party to celebrate a milestone birthday can be difficult to pull off. This came up because last Saturday I had hoped to be dancing the night away with one of my closest friends who was celebrating her last day of being 50. She had planned her party a year in advance and had to delay it a couple of times because of the resurgence of covid. So I was really looking forward to it. And I found out two days beforehand that she had to cancel it because so many people dropped out at the last time. I remember how difficult it had been gathering people together for my husband’s 30th birthday many moons ago. That was in part due to people waiting to see what the best offer on the night was going to be.
it got me wondering what it was all about and this is what came:
People of our time are losing the power of celebration. Instead of celebrating we seek to be amused or entertained.
Celebration is an active state, an act of expressing reverence or appreciation. To be entertained is a passive state–it is to receive pleasure afforded by an amusing act or a spectacle…. Celebration involves transcendence which is why it is so rare.
This helps us to understand why it is difficult to bring people together and to build community. It requires commitment and often times people are attracted to the next shiny thing that is coming along rather than realising that the extra-ordinary comes through the ordinary and the showing up even when you don’t feel it.
My invitation
This is a very special time not because we have just had a bank holiday, nor because it was Beltane….no I am celebrating completing another circle around the sun. Below are three gifts as my thanks for your ongoing support:
1. A birthday bath on 31 May. All those that sign up will bathe in a colour bottle and it is incredibly powerful because we do it on the same day which leads to an experience that is hard to put into words. It’s a lucky dip because you don’t know what you will get. Colour bottles normally cost £39 but as these have partially leaked, I am selling them for £22 plus postage.
2. Birthday book – Colourful Boardrooms, a journey through 13 levels of colour consciousness, will only cost £22 not £27 if bought in May and I will cover postage within the UK. This is what one of the readers said about it: Colourful Boardrooms explores and suggests a range of thinking and modalities that can help guide us through this massive change. It is an imperative for those wise enough to know that we must change our thinking if we are to navigate a way through to the world we want to create.
3. Birthday blitz – find out what’s holding you back by having a shadow card reading only £66 if booked and done during May. Charlotte wrote after hers: Just had my shadow card session with Kate. It was amazing. So many insights, guidance, reminders. I cannot recommend it highly enough.
