Flourishing and A New Word For 2024
3 July 2024 | BY ANDJELKA JANKOVIC | Life
This whole life you said, is like a dream that you don't wanna forget
It’s amazing what can happen in a year.
And honestly, last year felt like ten.
Real life will never let you down.
On the second day of 2023, my beloved cat Evie died. She had liver cancer and could barely keep any food down for the four months prior, and neither could I. She purred as she passed away. Then with my friend Dallas, we adorned her in flowers, feathers, and blessings, and wrapped her in soft pink linen before laying her into the earth.
Then on the last day of that first month, a man with the most beautiful hands I’d ever seen well, decimated me. He ended our relationship after his unexplainable rage was unleashed on me over four days in a “perfect” forest cabin. I was blindsided. And because the romantic in me is very strong, I thought we could work it out. A few weeks later, he delivered the blow: “I can’t do this,” and I was left in a state of such heartbreak; I honestly didn’t think I would make it to the other side.
It was a challenging start to the year, and my friends saved me.
When Evie’s soul left her body, I heard a voice say very clearly, “Now, go live. Live for all of us that can’t.”
And I knew what she meant.
I had to get my life energy back. I had to go to Ireland.
So then the first six months of 2023 became about preparation so I could pursue the call to finally travel to Ireland – the heartland of John O’Donohue.
I went about doing the things: subleasing my house, getting someone to look after my cat CousCous, leaving my job, and saying goodbye to all the people – friends, family, and invariably missing half the 40ths in my various friendship groups.
I had to go.
In June, I set off for my third pilgrimage in the past decade of my life.
And let me tell you: THERE IS SO MUCH LIFE TO LIVE.
My word of the year was: flourish.
And flourish I did.
The moment I saw the green fields of Ireland from outside of my tiny plane window, I heard John’s voice in the landscape and I didn’t know how or why, but I was home.
I had never been to Ireland before, nor do I have any known Irish ancestry, but as I came to understand in my bones time and time again, my soul has been here many times over.
This pilgrimage was particularly momentous. I had tried on two other pilgrimages (in my mid-twenties and early thirties) to earnestly answer the three central questions of my life, and I had “failed”. Which is what my first book is about.
After much soul searching and living everywhere from a penthouse apartment on a blow-up mattress in Manhattan’s East Village, a basement in Toronto to being part of an intentional community in New Mexico – I still had no answers. And plenty more questions.
Well, Ireland hit it out of the park.
I flourished.
I flourished.
I really did.
Even as I type this, I still can’t believe it from looking back at the dumpster fire that was my life at the outset of the year.
I travelled in Ireland for 10 months and was in motion for almost six months continuously. I slept in 70 plus beds from Couchsurfing to new friends inviting me into their homes to the charms of hostels, Airbnbs and finally housesitting over an Irish winter in West Cork and Wexford while writing the first draft of my book.
I want a word that means
okay and not okay,
more than that: a word that means
devastated and stunned with joy.
I want the word that says
I feel it all all at once.
— Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
I experienced so much beautiful humanity. One day I was walking/running and hauling my (many) bags for 30 minutes on a country back road to catch a bus that I was surely going to miss, and by magic a car appeared and then stopped. A young man leaned out the window and said, “Get in – I’ll get you to the bus stop”. This happened to me time and time again. The inherent kindness of the Irish people cannot be understated.
I’ve never felt so welcomed in my life.
Travelling – especially alone – involved a good deal of trust and faith to endure the pressure of not knowing many things like where you are sleeping tonight, figuring out what is safe and what is not in a split second, who you will meet, and where you will end up.
It was a huge phase of growth. Soul growth. My faith in kindness has exceeded all expectations. And I learnt a lot about what it truly means to blossom.
To flourish feels like the first day I landed in Dublin to a city in full bloom. I was greeted by more flowers than I’d ever seen in my life covering front gardens, parks and shopfronts to bus stops and pubs. Huge dahlia flowers and wild poppies, ranunculus blooms and bushes of awe-inspiring fuschia just casually everywhere.
I was gobsmacked. I didn’t expect it and was rewarded ten-fold.
Flourishing is a lot of patience.
Waiting for all the elements to do their work and come together at the right time.
This feels especially pertinent for a late bloomer.
Flourishing means to support someone’s growth and expansion, like you would your own.
You flourish by giving more than you’ve got.
Being excessively kind. Generosity brings the most unexpected gifts and graces in return.
The idea of your own personal ‘flourishing’ is getting back to your inherent essence – and giving that as your service to the world. You make a difference by being you.
Our imaginations need moodling – long, inefficient, happy idling, dawdling and puttering to flourish. — Brenda Ueland
I’m not saying my entire life peaked in Ireland, but it was very close.
It was the best music year of my life. The Irish music scene is absolutely killing it.
I met and fell in love with so many anam cara across Ireland and miss them every day.
I learnt to weave baskets from Irish willow with my dear friend and master basketmaker Martin. I spent a morning chatting in the kitchen of Ireland’s last matchmaker, Willy Dally. I caught over 50 buses and trains through rolling hills and the greenest greens, made friends with sheep (and unsuccessfully tried to herd them) and felt more me than I’ve ever been.
I always think, “This is a moment to be alive for.”
And every day in Ireland, it was.
I would say the biggest achievement of the year was that I taught myself to drive a manual car again (woahhh, hill starts are hectic) and how to chisel ice from windows so I could drive to the Bantry farmers market (don’t use boiling water, pals).
To everyone’s surprise, I developed a liking for rugby (when Ireland was playing), had a seaweed bath in a barrel on the Ring of Kerry with my friend Bek who came to visit, and fell in love with the magnificence of oak, hawthorn, gorse, nettle and mugwort to name a few.
Spending days in moss (literally) and drinking tea in forests and stone circles and HAVE YOU SEEN THE JAW-DROPPING ROLLING HILLS OF WEST CORK. I read Manchán Magan and then met Manchán Magan. This is the kind of magic I am talking about.
A reawakened sacral chakra in the Scottish Cairngorm mountains and then the most unbelievable 20 hours of my life in Belfast on a Tuesday night.
I got my vitality back – my life force.
This feels like the biggest win of the century.
Flourishing needs the freedom of unscheduled time and the spontaneity in spaciousness — not a colour-coded calendar (as much as I love those).
I went to Scotland for a month to celebrate my birthday, climb Ben Nevis – the highest mountain in the UK, live my Outlander dreams and soak up Scottish accents (which are even better in real life).
I read 70 books in 2023 and made just about as many playlists (including Flourish – my soundtrack to the year).
To say I am extraordinarily lucky when I travel would be an understatement. Good fortune follows me. Strangers became quick friends. All the beds, hot showers, meals, rides, loaning of cars (thank you angel Anne!) and bikes, cups of coffee and tea, meals, favours, gifts, invitations, books and bread. I wouldn’t believe it if it hadn’t happened to me.
The soul loves risk; it is only through the door of risk that growth can enter. – John O’Donohue
There were dark valleys too.
A particularly scary 36 hours when I had to flee the Isle of Skye. A lot of confusion. Being triggered by hiking couples. Running out of money. Being sick and being alone. Panic and anxiety. My grandma in Serbia dying. Missing basic comforts. Crying in Dunnes carpark. NOT ENOUGH HOT WATER. And the most spectacular rejection of my life.
When my November departure date rolled around, I moved my plane ticket. I wasn’t ready to leave Ireland. I hadn’t written a word of my first draft and I wanted to experience the other side of the wheel at Winter Solstice. Beware what you wish for. The darkness came for me in the isolation of the land, loneliness, despair, ‘I don’t know what to do with my life’ wails to the sky and depression.
Even so, I tried to remember what I came here for.
Sorry I didn’t text you back for a month. Darkness took me. And I strayed out of thought and time. Stars wheeled overhead, and everyday was as long as the life age of the earth. But I’m good now. How are you? – Josh Carlos
To flourish is to act like you have everything to give, and give it.
Give in your time, attention, presence and care.
Don’t be stingy; don’t be petty.
You will receive it back in tenfold.
I ended up writing the first draft of my book over three cold and magical (oh the wonder of hindsight) months in an Irish winter.
I had a huge realisation around this time: we need other people. For a devout Solitude Sally, this was a big deal. And I knew I had to evolve. This has taken more bravery than I thought I had.
All flourishing is mutual.– Robin Wall Zimmerer
I second that, Robin (and adore you).
You see – your flourishing inspires my flourishing, and my flourishing encourages yours.
And I will never forget the Northern summer I spent eating blackberries straight from hedgerows, dipping into the freezing Atlantic with glee, and staying open. It was bliss.