Explore Your One Word 2024 with Our Exciting Sensory Challenge
{One Word 2024 July Linkup}
Link all of your ONE WORD blog posts below. Share an update about your One Word in the comments.
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Sensory Challenge
Did you know that scientists believe we have more than five senses? In fact, many suggest we have 10, 20, or even 30 different senses.
Every year we do a SENSORY CHALLENGE with our One Word, and now it’s time to dive in with your 2024 word! Here are three unique sensory challenges for you to explore.
1. **TOUCH IT**
How can you physically feel your word? Experiment with different textures. Does your word feel like smooth satin or scratchy wool? Is it a hard pressure or a light touch? Hot or cold? Let your imagination guide you.
My word is CURIOSITY, so I’ve been more curious this month about textures and feels, like how sensitive we are to notice the tiniest little pebble in our shoe when we’re out for a walk, or how eating a donut leaves a weird greasy film in your mouth. I’m trying not to rush to find an answer for these things; just observe and notice them for now.
2. **TASTE IT**
Can you find a taste that embodies your word? Is it sweet like sugar, tart like a lemon, or something else entirely? Play around and discover what your word tastes like to you.
After eating a fresh peach cobbler over the weekend (thank you, Jeff!), I’m declaring it my official curiosity “taste.” It’s such a delightful blend of sweet and fatty and crunchy and smooth, all the delicious things that we can stay curious about in a food.
3. **LIGHT IT**
We rely on light to see, but how does your word interact with light? Is it a bright, shining beacon or something hidden in the shadows? Does it appear more vividly at dawn or during a beach sunset? Explore light and shadow to discover your word’s unique glow.
I find CURIOSITY the most in the play between light and shadows. For example, I find it so curious how highways can turn into strobe lights as I’m driving when the sun is at a particular angle and there are trees to my right or left. Also, I also love how curious light can be, finding a way to peak in through the smallest of openings. We’ve had blackout curtains in our bedroom for the past couple of years (I highly recommend!), and in the morning, the sunlight shines through the open rings at the top of the curtains. It lets me know that night has gone and morning has come.
Next Linkup
This One Word linkup will remain open for 2 weeks for your One Word posts, closing at midnight on Wednesday, August 7. Link as many posts as you’d like about your One Word. Each link will also be shared in our One Word Facebook group.
Our August linkup will open on Saturday, August 24 (and on the 24th of each month for 2024).
If you’d like to receive our monthly One Word emails and ideas, join here any time of the year.
How does your One Word feel, taste, or show up in the light? Share anything you’d like about your word. Leave a comment here.
Link Up About Your One Word!
- Unraveling the Myths of Confidence: Insights from “The Age of Magical Overthinking”
- Share 4 Somethings – Wild Goose Version July 2024
This sensory challenge sounds intriguing, Lisa. Even though I no long do a word of the year, I do enjoy the unique ways you dig deeper into your word. ???? Thank you. Love and blessings to you!
Thanks, Trudy! I try to find different ways to engage with our One Words. Some are easy, then others like this month’s challenge are a bit harder, for me anyway. But they feel appropriate for my word Curiosity. 🙂
I’ve never thought of my WOTY as sensory Lisa! This is a challenge!
???? Stay tuned. Thank you… ????
Blessings, Jennifer
This one was more of a challenge for me, too, Jennifer! I try to find ways to embody my word as I practice it. Some words are easier to do this with than others. Curiosity has been an easy word to work with because it can be so diverse.
This year with our One Word is just zipping by, Lisa. Thank you for hosting us and encouraging us in our journey.
I know – I can’t believe it’s already August! I’ve been thinking about my 2025 word already. 🙂 Have you?
This is an interesting way of looking at our Word of the Year Lisa. I hadn’t thought of applying a sensory element to my word – I’ll have to think what I’d do for my word of THRIVE. Thanks for the linkup.
Love this, Lisa, and all the curious ways in which you explore different facets of your word. Admittedly, I can’t think of anything sensory for the word CHOOSE, itself. But I can choose (often) to eat things I think taste good, choose what I see, choose what I smell that appeals. BUT not always with any of these possibilities. Then what?! It occurs to me that I can CHOOSE to have a good attitude when I encounter a taste, sight, or scent I don’t like, or perhaps, CHOOSE to do something to change it for good. Just some random musings that, sans your challenge, I would not have considered. I’m going to go CHOOSE to listen to Bach while CHOOSING to read a new Bible study! Thank you for the inspiration.
xo
Lynn
And I always CHOOSE to read your wonderful blog!
This poem sprang to mind, because it contains sensory stimuli, like sight, scent, taste. It’s a “layered poem,” in that I was given certain prompts to incorporate or layer into a poem and, CURIOUSLY, to see where they led. (Some were my most recent dream, a childhood memory, colors, etc). I CHOSE to take the challenge, when I had never written a poem in this fashion before. I ended up loving both the process and a poem which was to me revelatory and something I’d never have penned had I not CHOSEN to be CURIOUS enough to try! 😉 Once I hit “post,” I’m unsure if this will lineate properly. Ugh. It is correctly lineated as I have copied it here, prior to posting. ~Lynn
Blowing Kisses: Waking to Beauty
by Lynn D. Morrissey ©
“When it’s over, I want to say: all my life / I was a bride married to amazement.” —Mary Oliver
“I will rejoice greatly in the Lord, my soul will exult in my God; for He has clothed me with garments of salvation, … He has wrapped me with a robe of righteousness, … as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.” —Is. 61:10
“‘Both the Spirit and the bride say, “Come!’” Let anyone who hears, say, “‘Come!’” Let the one who is thirsty come. Let the one who desires take the water of life freely.’” —Rev. 22:17
I wake to beauty—a day streaming yellow and indigo,
like a soft-shawling banner of hope.
Glory’s on parade,
so
how can God permit evil
run amuck like a wild, teeth-baring bear
stalking
prey?
I could deny this tension,
pretend He doesn’t exist,
sit home and avert my eyes,
pull up the covers and take a nap,
make tea,
write letters,
rifle through yesterday’s stale mail.
linger over old books and faded photographs,
resigned to the shock that the world is broken,
though that I was born, I will
die.
Or …
I could defy grizzly ugliness and fear,
refuse a living death.
I could dare to live while I’m living,
to see God’s beauty,
dare to burst from my covers and my cowering,
dare to don yellow and indigo snug to my skin
like an avant-garde wedding gown trailing a bridal veil of hope.
I could toss red rose petals to
herald His reign,
His kingdom,
His coming.
I could join God’s royal procession and
wed Him anew,
inviting the bystanders and wayfarers and passersby,
the blind,
the sick,
the lame,
the poor to the wedding feast.
I could lift my glass, toasting the Host,
imbibing His cordial of joy.
I could hug to my heart His nuptial gift of love.
I could close my eyes—not to sequester—but to savor
and inhale intimacy,
press rose petals to my lips,
then fling them with abandon,
blowing crimson kisses to the world!
Nope. Bummer. It didn’t lineate in the way I’d written it, but you get the gist.
Lynn