Forge

Who wants to be the word that follows fabulous?  It’s not unlike discovering minutes before you go on stage for a school talent show, clasping your flute in sweaty hands, that the act before you is a dance team in sparkly, skin-tight leotards and pompom boots thrusting to Survivor’s “Eye of the Tiger.”  But go on we must to another word I’m mulling in 2011, forge.

Dictionary.com listed ten meanings. 

·         form by heating and hammering; beat into shape

·         to form or make, esp. by concentrated effort

·         to imitate (handwriting, a signature, etc.) fraudulently

·         to commit forgery

·         to work at a forge

·         (of a horse at a trot) to strike the forefeet with the shoes of the hind feet

·         a special fireplace, hearth, or furnace in which metal is heated before shaping

·         the workshop of a blacksmith; smithy

·         to move ahead slowly; progress steadily

·         to move ahead with increased speed and effectiveness

I’m not thinking of forge as a follower of the word fabulous but a partner for my 2011 theme. 

Why would fabulous need forge?  Because in life’s day to day theater the brilliant flash of fabulous might be daunting.  But not with the solidity of forge.  We can forge the seemingly unbending raw material life offers and pound it into a shape that serves us.  The metal might be our work, our health, our relationships, our finances, our attitudes.  Even steel will bend under the right circumstances.  Certainly this takes concentrated effort and work.  Not only does forging give us the ability to craft our lives into something we can work with, it allows us to be the very heat needed to do so.  We, the fabulous, embrace slow steady progress and periods of increased speed and effectiveness.

What of the fraudulent signature?  When fabulous feels far away we can imitate another person, “signing their name” to draft out of their fabulousness when ours is feeling depleted.  Faking fabulous never hurts if we are attempting to copy qualities of someone wealthy in fabulousness.  Teachers, spiritual leaders, grandparents, ancient writers, friends - people worthy of emulation abound and seeking them out is essential.  To copy a little fabulous is better than giving up on it altogether!  Fraud has a negative subtext but we can imitate someone without claiming their character.  We certainly should not attempt to assume the traits of another person with deceitful or deceptive intent.  We are not stealing identities but merely impersonating qualities we intend to manifest in ourselves, more practice than pretense.

Cheers for forging fabulous!