Happy New Year, one and all!

I'm always saying that January 1st is an arbitrary time for a new start (e.g. back in this very old post). 

But it is a new calendar year (how long will it take you to remember to put "15" instead of "14" when writing the date?), and it's also a time when there's a lot of collective energy around renewal, resolution, review, referral.

Blogs are great representatives for this blend of review and resolution, looking backward and forward. Unlike a static website, a blog looks ahead and to the past, and it links and refers to and interacts with other spaces, online and elsewhere. Like the present moment, it's a portal to connection.

This particular blog is for me, of course--many things simply don't exist for me unless I write about them--but principally it is for you  who are reading this. The more I follow my path and practices, the more I realize that everything I do is an offering and a gift. Here's some of what I'm offering--in 2015,  today, here.

In creating a blog, in performing a gong, in writing a book, in planting gardens, in the march of days, nights, seasons, there's repetition everywhere. What do you associate with repetition? 

• "practice makes perfect"
• conscious replacement of memes
• focus, mindfulness, creation of second nature
• "fake it till you make it"
• tedium
• "why do I have to sweep the floor/eat/pull weeds when I'll have to do it all again later?"
• So many words I could pick for "word of the week" here ! To push against the negative aspects of repetition, I chose "rote."

Happy, peaceful holidays to all. "Solstice" means "sun standing"--the day length changes very little for about four days around the shortest and longest days. Time standing stiller. Good time for looking inward and for family festivities. Thanks to Skype, I visited with family long distance; otherwise, I had quiet, inward time, played with herbs in the kitchen, read books. I did no work, for the first time I can remember except when I've had company (which is work).

Doing no work yesterday felt like the sun "standing still," like ignoring what's always on my shoulders. It felt like I'd left undone something I should have attended to. And turns out, there was a client wanting work urgently today, but I got up early this morning and got it done in time, feeling fresh and clear and focused toward the work.

When I awoke yesterday morning, it was to a sense of anticipation, a little apprehension, and determination. 

Just by virtue of having woken up, I'd begun to be "on the Gong." More, it was a triple beginning: the beginning of the waxing moon, the beginning of lengthening days as we turn back toward the sun.

It's wise to have interim milestones and checkins during a period as long as 100 days, acknowledging the smaller cycles within that time frame. This time around, I've recognized the importance of that. A buddy system for days!

Here's the scary thing about having memes--unconscious mantras--dictating what you do: they can infect your goals!

We list our goals and wishes. We adopt practices for 100 days to build clarity and efficiency. We build clarity and efficiency to know what we want to achieve. With this clarity and efficiency, our goals come in reach.

But if our original goals were built on memes, either we won't choose beneficial practices or, if we do, we'll end up feeling like the naked emperor in his "new suit."

Part 1 of 2
Most people have heard that a staggering percentage of our decision-making is done subconsciously, on autopilot (a study from the Max Planck Institute calls free will into question), which leads to the claim that much of the time, we're using a tiny fraction of our potential brainpower.

We know this --it's ingrained in our language and culture. What happens when you "push someone's buttons"? --They react in a completely predictable, reflex manner. Dogs can be trained to salivate when a bell rings, which has nothing to do with food except for an association they have "wired in."

Although there's all sorts of problems with comparing mind and consciousness to a computer's operating system, the metaphor of programming definitely fits here. We have little scripts ("memes") running in the background that determine how we respond to things around us, often in ways we're not proud of, and we don't even know the memes are there, we didn't choose them, and we wouldn't choose them  if we had the choice!

Rooting out and replacing these memes is at the heart of habit-changing and a guiding light in choosing the practices to make up a 100-day gong. Memes come from mimicking; what do you wish to reflect?

It's the great paradox. "The harder I work, the luckier I seem to get." No one seems to know who was the first person to say that, but it rings true. Likewise: "The muse is more likely to show up if you sit at your desk ready for her."

Likewise, when you're not depleted and deprived, you're better able to respond to emergencies.

When in tune with the cycles  going on around you, and when you create your own cycles, you're laying the groundwork for liftoff. If you know what your goals are, you'll see your way clearer toward achieving them. If you don't know what they are, you'll see clearer toward identifying them.

That's what the 100-day Gong is for. Here are some resources that will help. (Edited once, and likely to be edited more as people suggest to me resources that have worked for them.)