Every New Years I like to create a theme or pick an intentional word as a point of focus for my designs for the year ahead. In years past it has been: "Self Care", and "Collaboration". 

This year I had a difficult time picking a word... I have to be honest I didn't have one by New Years. I felt a little sad and rather disappointed that one hadn't come to me so easily as years before and it even made me question my creative flow a little bit. I had put a superficial timeline on myself (New Year's Eve) and then was disappointed when that deadline was not met. 

I should know better... in the past, I never had to work to know what my guiding theme was... it had just popped into my head and felt RIGHT with no effort or debate... but foolishly I felt I could place expectations on when and how that would happen. Lesson learned: things come in their own time and for their own reason. Patience is a must when we follow our intuition and inner-callings. 

and then it happened! 

One of my goals (outside of knitting) has been to reconnect with my Gaelic roots. My Grandfather is Scottish and as I get older I have had an increasing desire to learn about my Gaelic ancestry and the Gaelic language. I had started off this year by gifting myself a Gaelic dictionary and some coursework in learning the language. As I flipped through the dictionary I randomly opened a page and my eye was immediately drawn to the word dùsgadh... which means "re-awakening" or "revival".  And that was that! That zing I was waiting for hit me and I had found my word... a word I had always known was under the surface just waiting to be found.

Dùsgadh, or revival is something I have been thinking about for quite some time and have been preparing myself to do these last few months... without have the word to describe it. 

I have to be honest. I have not felt like myself in a long, long time. Years. I was in a significant car accident and some other major life events with on-going post-concussion symptoms. I went from an active, busy, energetic, social person to a sore, inactive, somewhat depressed, anxious and withdrawn shell of myself. As my 35th birthday approaches, I was committed to not spending the second half of my thirties the way I had spent the first half. I am going to find my way back to myself.  

I have also felt a deep longing for some time to re-awaken the ancestral lineage within myself and now it all makes sense why no English word appealed to me while I patiently waited for the right one to come along. I am connecting to my ancestors... I am reawakening a dying language by speaking it. 

Dùsgadh is also an important word related to my work at Wolf & Faun. These past few months I have been reflecting on my business model, my designs, my products, and even this website and this blog post will signify the intentional revival of this creative endeavour that is Wolf & Faun. You will notice (if you have visited my website in the past) that I have spent some time this Winter changing things up a bit and I expect to be quiet on the surface for the next few months as I do some deep work within and behind the scenes to continue to bring forth quiet and sleeping parts of myself and my creativity. 

So there you have it... my word! I am excited to see where this takes me... I feel inspired to delve deep into language, into design techniques, into traditions and into folklore and manifest it through creating and exploring. I feel anticipation to begin my journey to health and have started that path already but intend to dive much deeper in the next weeks and months to come. 

It's going to be a most wonderful year... I can feel it in my bones, in my hands, and on my tongue. 

Do you have a word? What is your word? If you never thought about it before, what word jumps out at you? Comment below! 

Many Blessings and Happy Knitting 

Nat 
Wolf & Faun