Well, it's been awhile, but these diaries come up on me like butterflies. And when I compare discussions of beauty, with the awesomely relevant hardhitting political and social diaries that DK consistently delivers, I'm reluctant to waste space on this topic. I throw myself on your mercy, throw up your offerings on the Altar of Beauty!
For those who are new to the topic, you are invited to share your most recent moments of beauty in this diary. That's all the guidance you need. Now commenceth my erratic ramblings. My last most beautiful moment was slogging through serious wind, cold, and snow-drifts in Waterton Lakes National Park, in Canada, over Christmas. I'd gone up to Canada to be with my family, and had been weirdly disappointed by the warmth and lack of snow. It was like bracing for a knife-fight that turned out to be a session of paper-rock-scissors.
We drove south and spent 3 days in Waterton, which had all the winter I needed. Frozen creeks, waist-deep snow, core-chilling snow-blitz winds, and gorgeousness everywhere. I walk happily in landscapes like this because being forced to factor survival into casual walks makes me love life all the more. I'm a bit perverse that way.
I followed fox and deer tracks in the snow through a white-brilliant world, deadly with cold, shared with survivors and adaptors. I struggled through snowdrifts up to my chest, walked cautious on new-frozen lakes, slid and skidded along creeks where the ice flowed from dense blocks to thin sheens. I sat buddha while lakes and mountains threw wind and snow at me, layering sheaths of ice on my clothes, tracked mice birds fox and deer through the snow.
So that was it, my moment of beauty. The second topic is resolutions. We're far enough now into the year that the ephemerals have already reverted. My resolution is still building coherence, but it has to do with leadership. I am now in a central leadership role in at least 3 organisations, and until now I've treated that as some quirky failure of the operative laws of the universe. I consider myself fundamentally incompetent, and have considered my core responsibility to be to provide shelter/protection for these organizations, keeping the Chair seat warm, until real leaders stepped up.
The result of that perspective is that I have been a primarily hands-off leader, focussed on consensus decisions and reluctant to take real ownership or provide assertive, personality-based leadership. While the Occupy Movement has been an inspirational affirmation of consensus-based decision-making, it's also emphasized the limitations of that leadership style.
The truth is, I'm at a point where I'm pretty well aware of my competencies and limitations, and I'm in these leadership positions for a reason. It took me a long time to get here, and I'm confident that I can be a responsible leader. I have been for years now reluctant to be too assertive about my vision and perspective, but after waiting around for others to step up, I've realized that it's on me to inspire leaders by being one myself.
So that's roughly my resolution for 2012 - to take better ownership of the projects and roles I'm involved in, and to be a stronger leader by owning the role - taking risks (and responsibility) based on my vision, experience, and commitment.