A Year of Questions

How to use these questions

Once a week, at whatever hour is quietest for you, read one question and write about it for ten minutes. Put the date at the top. Write by hand if you can; the slowness helps. Do not try to be clever or complete. If nothing comes, write that nothing came, and close the notebook.

These are not a test, and nothing here is trying to lead you to any particular conclusion about yourself. Some of the questions are about identity, some are about animals and seasons, and some are only about being alive. They are arranged by season because people tend to feel differently as the year turns, and it can be useful to notice how. If you live in the southern half of the world, or simply prefer to, begin with whichever season you are in.

Keep the notebook private. A journal that someone else may read soon starts to perform for them. If you decide later to share something you wrote, that is a choice you can make then.

Spring

The season of beginnings, early light and things that will not wait.

1. What is waking up in you this year?
2. What is the first animal you remember noticing, and what did you notice about it?
3. When you were small, what did you pretend to be most often, and did it feel like pretending?
4. What would you like to understand about yourself by this time next year? What could you leave unanswered?
5. Describe the last time you felt restless. Where did the restlessness want to take you?
6. Which of your habits did you learn from people, and which seem to have come from somewhere else?
7. What does your body like to do when the weather first turns mild?
8. Who would you tell first, if you were to tell anyone anything important about yourself? Why them?
9. What word for yourself have you tried on and set down? What did you learn from wearing it?
10. What are you impatient about? What would patience look like?
11. Where is the nearest wild place to you, however small? When did you last go there?
12. What did you believe about yourself five years ago that you no longer believe?
13. What is beginning that you have not yet admitted is beginning?

Summer

The season of long days, full strength and open ground.

14. When do you feel most fully yourself? Describe the place, the hour and the company.
15. What part of your life is too crowded? What part is too empty?
16. Describe a moment of species euphoria, or of plain joy, in as much detail as you can.
17. Which senses do you trust most? Which do you wish you could trust more?
18. What do you do with heat, with brightness, with noise? What does your animal side, if you have one, do with them?
19. Who in your life makes room for all of you? Have you thanked them?
20. What do you want to protect? What would you defend, and how?
21. If you spent a whole day outdoors with no plan, how would you spend it?
22. What is something you are good at that you rarely give yourself credit for?
23. Where do you feel at home that you did not expect to?
24. What story, myth or folktale do you return to, and what does it know about you?
25. What are you carrying that is heavier than it needs to be?
26. What would you like more of before the days begin to shorten?
27. Write about a real animal you have watched closely. What did it teach you without trying?

Autumn

The season of harvest, longing and things gathered in.

27. What has this year given you that you did not ask for?
28. Is there a homesickness in you without an address? Describe it.
29. What are you ready to let go of? What are you not ready to let go of yet?
30. When did doubt last serve you well?
31. Which of your instincts have you learned to hide, and which have you learned to trust?
32. What do you store up against hard times: food, money, friends, quiet, hope?
33. Describe the sound of the season where you live. What does it stir in you?
34. What did you know about yourself as a child, before anyone told you what you were?
35. Whose understanding have you been waiting for? What would change if you stopped waiting?
36. What part of this is grief, and has it been given its due?
37. What do you owe to the real creatures whose shape you feel close to?
38. Which of your beliefs about yourself has held up best under honest questioning?
39. What are you harvesting from the work of earlier years?

Winter

The season of rest, darkness, and the roots doing their slow work.

40. Where do you go, inwardly, when you need to rest?
41. What does your body want in the dark months? Have you been letting it have that?
42. Describe a dream you remember, without deciding what it means.
43. What are you afraid people would think if they knew you completely? Which of those people truly matter?
44. What would it mean to hold your identity lightly and still hold it?
45. What small, steady practice keeps you well? How could you protect it?
46. Who would you like to be gentler with, now that you know how it feels to be misunderstood?
47. What does solitude give you? What does it cost?
48. What did you learn this year that your younger self needed to hear?
49. What is asking for patience?
50. If nothing about you needed fixing, what would you do with tomorrow?
51. Read back through the year's pages. What do you notice that you could not have seen at the time?
52. What is already well?

After the year

When the last page is written, put the notebook away for a season before you read it all through. Most people who do this are surprised by two things: how much changed, and how much did not. Both are worth knowing.

Some of these questions also appear on the bench, where one is offered at a time beside a breathing circle. For a quieter visit, try the walk through the garden. If writing about yourself brings up more than you can comfortably hold, put the notebook down and read wellbeing and care. There is no question here worth more than your peace.