31 Days Of Change

"In the entire circle of the year there are no days so delightful as those of a fine October, when the trees are bare to the mild heavens, and the red leaves bestrew the road, and you can feel the breath of winter, morning and evening—no days so calm, so tenderly solemn, and with such a reverent meekness in the air."

~Alexander Smith

October is one of my favourite months of the year. I love the clocks going back, oh yes really I do; I love rain on dark afternoons; dark mornings; the leaves changing colour; soup weather again; the smell of bonfires and chimneys as people start to clear garden waste, or need extra heating in the house; I love Halloween coming, and that sense of getting ready for winter. I feel closer to nature in Autumn somehow. The season of abrupt and dramatic change.

"Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns."

~George Eliot

Once again I've decide to join in a blogging challenge, this one is hosted over at Nesting Place and involves making a commitment to write on your blog for 31 days during October, about a subject or theme of your choice.

I must admit to feeling a little inspired right now. It started with the full moon on Saturday and a week booked off work.

We are going through a massive change as some of you will know, and as I was thinking about this, I remembered last year when I was made redundant and the chance we had then to make some changes. Changes happened around us. We tried to grab the opportunities with both hands but kept on hitting dead ends. Doors kept shutting which ever way we turned.

So I got swept back into helping people as my job, and back to exhausting myself by falling back into old patterns of working. I did succeed in making some changes in how I spent my time, and then came the horrible spring and summer of 2012. Everything stopped.

Now when I look at our lives, or perhaps my life, apart from my job being different and Mr Stayingawake just having lost his, much of the everyday and many my own habits, are as they were a year or more ago. Familiar. Safe. Stagnating. Allowing me the familiar routine of working at full speed in my day job, and then simply to crash at the end of the day. Everything else just carries on the same, day after day, year after year. I've been feeling stale and stuck for a while, on the one hand wanting just to throw everything up in the air, and on the other a little fearful about making any of the important changes.

As change comes to us all, each and everyone, all of the time, whether we like it or not, whether we choose to deny it or to embrace this, it really seems a bit daft to cling on so tightly. It feels right to throw open my arms and to welcome it in, like a breath of autumn air, coming in at the front door of the house, and rushing out of the back. It's autumn, everything is starting to die off. Winter will be here soon and we will enjoy feeling warm and safe by the fire. In spring there will be new life again. It is an ideal time to explore the pieces as they fall onto the floor, to sweep some aside, to recycle some, to treasure some and to find some new pieces, or some that got lost along the way.

I wrote the week before last, about choosing what I want to take forward with me as we go through our life changes right now. It's time for some difference, some risk, some adventure, some taking control of the changes I want, instead of drifting along through them.

So I have chosen change or difference, or embracing change or taking charge of change as my topic for the 31 days challenge. At this time of uncertainty for me and my family, it is time to have some lessons in how to get good at change. Leo, at zenhabits writes so well and is an inspiration for me as I start out on this 31 days of change.

So each day for 31 days, I will be doing something different; trying something new; a new way of being maybe; I might be laughing more; I may be changing my habits and routines; I might be throwing something out, or savouring something and holding it close to my heart, as change wraps itself around me like a big warm blanket of joy, and the October wind whirls the leaves around my feet.

As I didn't know how to make a button for my 31 days challenge, I made a photo that will do as a button, using a photograph I took in April last year whilst at the Eden Project in Cornwall. The Sculpture is called Eve and is by Pete and Sue Hill. I thought I'd better give the credit to the artists and hope they don't mind me using the image for my button. She is beautiful isn't she?

So here goes for day one, the definition of this little word change that many of us find so difficult to handle:

 verb (used with object)

1. to make the form, nature, content, future course, etc., of (something) different from what it is or from what it would be if left alone: to change one's name; to change one's opinion; to change the course of history.

2. to transform or convert (usually followed by into ): The witch changed the prince into a toad.

3. to substitute another or others for; exchange  for something else, usually of the same kind: She changed her shoes when she got home from the office.

4. to give and take reciprocally; interchange: to change places with someone.

5. to transfer from one (conveyance) to another: You'll have to change planes in Chicago.

verb (used without object)

9. to become different: Overnight the nation's mood changed.

10. to become altered or modified: Colors change if they are exposed to the sun.

11. to become transformed or converted (usually followed by into ): The toad changed into a prince again.

12. to pass gradually into (usually followed by to  or into ): Summer changed to autumn.

13. to make a change or an exchange: If you want to sit next to the window, I'll change with you.

noun

18. the act or fact of changing; fact of being changed.

19. a transformation or modification; alteration: They noticed the change in his facial expression.

20. a variation or deviation: a change in the daily routine.

21. the substitution of one thing for another: We finally made the change to an oil-burning furnace.

22. variety or novelty: Let's try a new restaurant for a change.