2010: This is your secret name in our troop

It was late August or early September when I knew what my theme for 2010 would be: a single word appropriated by Hiro, adopted by Havi and hence many others, its definition and nuances of meaning shifted for new use.

Sovereignty:

Sovereignty... is the quality of owning your space so completely and fully that you can’t be shaken from being you.

You get to be the (pirate-ey or not) queen — or king — of your own fabulous kingdom. Or queendom. Or whatever.

In other words:

Your body. Your energy. Your physical space. Your emotional space. Your work. Your practice. Whatever else belongs to you. It’s all yours.

You own it. You feel comfortable in it. You inhabit what is yours and you belong there fully and completely.

It’s feeling so safe being yourself that other people’s stuff is obviously just that.

It means having the patience to interact with your own stuff with love, knowing that it’s constantly changing anyway.

And your experience of sovereignty doesn’t step on anyone else’s. It’s something that everyone gets to experience for himself or herself. --Havi

Lovely, right? ... Except it's a bit of a mouthful and I haven't quite internalized it all so that the word sovereignty alone pulls the whole idea into focus. It is after all someone else's word.

So in early December, I started pondering what sovereignty is in my vernacular. Stand Your Ground came to mind almost immediately, but I resisted it. I'm still resisting it. There's too much stubbornness in that phrase, and I've already got plenty of that. I needed something different. I became obsessed with the idea that I needed to rewatch my go-to theme source: David Lynch's Dune, and yet, I never got around to it.

By the beginning of January, I figured if it wasn't a quote I already knew then it probably wouldn't make a good theme for me anyway. A few days ago, it came to me. I popped in my Dune DVD and double-checked the bit that had come to mind, in which Stilgar gives Paul his Fremen name:

You have strength. You shall be known as Usul, which is the strength of the base of the pillar.

How I love the voice of the actor who plays Stilgar and his blue within blue eyes, a handsome messenger indeed.

2010: You Shall Be Known As Usul.

The strength of the base of the pillar conveys the unshakable sense of self that I was looking for, and also grace, confidence, integrity, good posture, and physical strength, and likely much else I've yet to discern.

I think You Shall Be Known As Usul is going to help me kick some ass this year.

What's your theme, goal, or intention for 2010?


4 years ago on TTaT: twinge