I’m a little behind schedule for  a New Year’s post. I wasn’t really feeling the whole New Year goal-setting thing last week, so I didn’t give it a bit of thought, but now that it’s almost two weeks in, I’m starting to look around and notice a pile of goals.

– I signed up for Rosemary Gladstar’s Science and Art of Herbalism class. I didn’t do it with any particular thought beyond that fact that I had a good month financially, she’s knocked the price down for the winter, and it’s something I’ve been wanting to do for a while. I have studied herbalism in many different ways over many years, but never in as formal and systematic way as this class. I just got the ginormous binder and it looks fantastic, very in-depth, and just what I wanted. I would like to complete this course by the end of 2010. If it takes longer because I really get it into it and want to go deeper, that’s fine, but I don’t want it to take longer because I get distracted and lazy. This is also a part of a larger goal for the year, which came from divination I did at New Year’s – this is the year when I get focused on learning healing work. I feel drawn to energy healing, but the classes and such I have seen in Reiki and other such modalities have a new-agey, scammy feel to them that repels me. I want to learn something more basic, more down to earth, and I’m thinking I would be better off learning from the faeries than from the New Agers. But ideally I’d like to find a human that can help.  Of course, herbalism can also be a form of energy healing, since it also works with living (or once-living) beings in the form of plants – mediating the energy between human and plant is sort of what I see as my work as an herbalist, so maybe I’ll get clearer on that. Anyway, that’s my big woo-woo goal for the year.

– By December, I would like for my dog to be able to pass the Canine Good Citizen test. Did I mention I got a dog? I got a dog, right before Thanksgiving 2009! She is awesome! She is in my lap right now forcing me to reach awkwardly across the keyboard, but that’s fine! I blame any typos in this post on her. This is my dog:

Her name is Clara, after my great-aunt who died the same day I brought her home. I got her from a great little shelter in New Jersey, with the assistance of The Gods Are Bored’s own Anne Johnson. (Anne was right – this is indeed the correct dog for me.) She is learning how to be a happy and well-adjusted little dog, which is a bit of a challenge as she is anxious by nature. She is also very well-behaved and aims to please, so I think we can get to good citizen status in a year. So there’s another goal – the CGC is a concrete and tangible goal, but it’s part of my larger goal to be a good dog-mom.

–  Dance more.

–  Get my driver’s license and a car. Shock, horror, etc. Some things have changed in my life that make car ownership seem like the way to go. Has to be done. Ugh.

– Keep up and continue to expand on my spiritual path – the druid stuff, the witchy stuff, the faery stuff – all that stuff. Keep doing it, and keep writing about it.

– Take real steps to get myself back up to New England – I don’t think it will happen in a permanent way this year, but steps can be taken. I’m done with this Southern life. I am tempted to throw some really big goals into this bit, but for now those will remain unspoken. These will do.