We are desperately holding onto life
Not claiming it as our own

We are bracing
Ahead of ourselves
One millisecond
Or years?

We are tense and gripping
Replaying the past
Lingering
Dry 

Not here, now
Not juicy
Not rested easeful and in our power

We are distracted
Occupied
With just about everything that is NOT our own experience

The breath is caught up somewhere in the body
We are sucking it in
Clenching
Can you feel it?

Maybe it’s the jaw, maybe it’s the tongue
Maybe it’s deeper
Vocal cords?
Heart? Vagus? The deep organs? 
How about the insides of the hips, on the inner swoops of your pelvis?
Ya. There.

Where our intentional thought and breath move,
That’s where health vitality circulation and blood flow
LIFE FORCE ENERGY

When we infuse oxygen and SPIRIT into the depths of our body
We initiate a deep unclenching
Nourishing waters can begin to flow
A kink that has persisted for generations
Beings to soften

A deep release
A nourishing opening
A surrendering 

A rested, easeful palm
Open to the heavens
And all of a sudden there’s room

To take a deeper breath
To allow more in
There’s room to receive

Unkinked, now the energetic channel is connected
We are the connection point for Source to flow through us
Unclenched we can offer love without strings
We can receive the love that is always trying to penetrate our armor

We can sit back and rest in the divine timing of our lives
Unafraid, life becomes a game
We play
We let go
We let in

We can now claim this life as our own because we recognize our power
We aren’t shying away
We are learning to use it
We begin to take responsibility for our power
Because now we understand that we are witches and wizards
We are creators and alchemists 
We are gods 

And we can’t risk being floppy or diffuse with our energy anymore
We can’t risk being the victim anymore
We can’t risk being unaware
We can’t risk sitting in the passenger seat of our own lives for one more second
Aint’ no one taking that wheel babe, but you

It’s time to activate but wisdom tells us that our action is towards deep rest first
Resting open
Resting back
Into ourselves and into the innate power of the divine pulsing through our very own veins

Our action is deep nourishment first
We turn inward
We turn off the chattering outside world and begin to tune in
To the wisdom that pulses at our very own center

Wisdom evolved over the ages
Intrinsic 
Connected to Source
We know the wisdom truths live within our very own cells
That the health of the world and its systems IS the direct reflection of the health of our very own bodies and souls

So we journey inward
With wild courage
Compassion
Self-love
Ritual
As above, So below
As within, So without

Together we rise, we heal, we journey 
This kind of intentional turning inward, 
This grit to face our own depths willingly and with great love, 
It echoes through time and space, 
It heals, 
Not only us but our sisters and brothers, 
Our parents and grandparents, 
Our children and grandchildren

This healing makes WAVES in the pond of our collective!! 

Cannon ball, anyone?

We are creating our reality with every breath,

every thought,

every action we take.

And yet, we have denied our power.

We’ve relentlessly searched for it outside of our own self.

We’ve been lured away from the truth that god power dwells at our center, that we are breathing the creation power of the cosmos!

We’ve allowed ourselves to be dimmed,

dulled,

addicted,

hooked,

consumed,

distracted

AND YET we continue to manifest. Unaware. From that disempowered place.

You can see it, right?

In the static of the world.

In the static of our lives.

Our lack of clarity and intention attracts all kinds of bull shit our way. 

We get to CHOOSE. Every. Day.

To stay asleep, or to AWAKEN to our power, our truth and our purpose.

To actively take responsibility for what we are manifesting in this world.

To clean up and clarify our lives, habits, patterns, beliefs, programmed ideas and energies.

To claim what is truly us, what is truly deriving from our god center and to purge the rest of the crap that has been given to us that was never ours to carry.

No, it’s not fair, it’s not our fault that these things were given to us.

That we carry shame for our sexuality,

that we carry anxiety and fear of the mystery and unknown,

that we believe deep down that we are not worthy of the love that we so deeply yearn for.

Hold yourself lovingly in that.

And know that it is time to step up to our responsibility to clean up the static of our lives. So that our power can come through us solid,

wide,

expansive,

resonating,

sound,

safe,

clean,

and clear.

So that when we speak, think or write something down, the universe is 100% clear on how to deliver the thing we are desiring right to us.

Like a lightning rod in an electrical storm, we direct the power of the cosmos. 

So why the fuck are we sleeping on our lives?

You want it, go fucking get it.

I don’t know about you, but my 2022 is beginning to come into laser focus 💥

  
I’m in love with stones not because of their energy or frequencies or meaning and not because they look pretty in jewelry. I love stones because I love life! I love stones because they are a small celebration of this precious earth I call home and what it means to me that it exists. That I exist. They are a symbol of a something much greater than myself. They are a tiny, broken piece of a gigantic rock, which I love, that is spinning and flying through the vast nothingness (and everythingness) that is our Universe. They are a piece of history, of a timeline that stretches unfathomably before me and unfathomably after me. They are a small piece of the mountains outside my window. They connect us all as the ground that we walk upon. 
Rocks are not the only thing I cherish and worship from this earth. Aside from souls I also like to collect feathers and shells, sticks and bones, plants and art and anything else that I think is a reminder of the fact that I am a part of this universe. A part of a going on that is much greater than just me. I want to learn the exact conditions of pressures and heat that forged each stone that I cherish so much. I want to learn the names of the trees of the sticks I gather and all about the birds that carried those feathers and the people that created that art and the lives that they lead. I want to visit every place imaginable and touch it in a way that stretches far past the surface to a true spiritual experience. I want it to leave an impression on me, I want to be moved by it and its history and its people. I want to be able to taste the salty air of the pacific long after I am far from its sandy dunes. I want to be able to feel the weight of the heavy and humid air in my lungs of the hot sweaty east coast summers well into the bitter cold winter. 
Does anything really exist if we never actually see it, hear it, smell it, remember it? People tell us it exists, but I want to touch it. I want to know its details in my bones through experience, not just going and doing or seeing but truly BEING that moment and letting it infuse into my soul. Maybe it seems silly but cherishing these little pieces of the world we live in is just a small way that I confirm life. I EXIST! 
It is not the rock that I cherish, that is only a symbol of the life we live. And by “life” I don’t mean just the goings on and events of our lives but the true essence of life itself. This extremely rare gift that we are given for a short time of breath and love and togetherness and even the simplest of things like seeing with our eyes the colors of a sunrise or sunset. Sure life has good days and bad days but it is the essence of that life that lies beneath all the details that I cherish more than anything. It is so damn precious to me and this beautiful rock or soft feather is just another way I get to celebrate it. So yeah, rocks are cool.

Driving on these roads, these roads that I grew up on, these roads that taught me how to drive. Its so surreal. It’s as autonomous as breathing. I get lost in thought. Memories attached to every passing location. The bank that I got my first car loan at and still have accounts with. That print shop we got tee shirts from for the 5k we organized for the town that one time. The gym I used worked at and would bike the seven miles to and from everyday. The road that is so beautiful it always makes me cry when I drive down it because I feel so connected to life. Finally, today’s destination, the apartment complex I used to live in, the one I loved, the one I called home for longer than any other dwelling place in my history. 
My heart starts beating uncontrollably, my throat tightens and my nose tingles and everything gets kinda blurry as I blink away the emotion. Cali. Her essence is strong here. I can see her running around in the grass ignoring my calls and sniffing till she is sneezing uncontrollably. I wonder if her little canine brain ever remembers our life together. I see snowy days and sunny days. I see me practicing handstands and tumbling in the grass next to my blanket and coffee and journal. 
And then the tears come. Not as a longing for past days but as an honor of the life I lived here. It was perfect for that time. It helped create the girl I am today and I wouldn’t change a single detail of it, good or bad. I take a walk. The patio that was my nurtured nest above the town still has a crocheted plant holder hanging from it even though another family dwells there now. Funny. 
Off to Mica Beach. I forgot my rock collecting satchel. Maybe it’s better I don’t take the whole beach with me back to California in stony pieces…

  
It’s way overgrown. Like no one has used this space since I’ve gone. Side stepping poison ivy and batting away mosquitos, these things That I have been lucky enough to miss. I notice that a tree has fallen at Mica Beach Number One as I look down from the trail. I walk to Number Two and spend a moment there. I’m saving my favorite for last. The fresh, softly flowing water tickling my eardrums is cold and crisp. I don’t want to stay here, I’m going to Number Three. The toads and I hop along the trail a little further.

My steps are conscious and deliberate, my feet have memorized the way. Boy, is it overgrown. Mica Beach Number Three is barely accessible. I’ll be looking for ticks at the end of this day I’m sure. It’s not as welcoming as it once was. Even the energy has changed. Could that have been my once constant presence here? I’d like to think so. 
Mica beach Number Three is inaccessible by land, I’ll have to walk up the river but for now I want to sit and be. Take it all in and be so grateful for this place and its contribution to my soul. So many life events happened and unraveled in my soul here on these very stones. I want to notice every piece because one day when I come back to visit I won’t come here again and it’ll be “that place That I loved that one time,” it’ll be my past as already it is slipping into the past. Maybe this time here is a goodbye, an acceptance and honored love of what was while consciously stepping onto a new path. As my right foot has already made contact with the next beloved pathway that journeys through my life, this visit here is my left foot still very much planted on this path of my past and it is about to lift off and follow in suit. 
It feels like a dream. A perfect, cherished dream with a taste so sweet I want to remember it forever. 

  

So much bitterness and resentment. Don’t ever blame the happenings of your life in someone else. Your life is YOUR responsibility. No one else’s. Period. If you’re upset, you’re upset with YOU. Don’t be disillusioned. That’s a curse that takes you down a long road of unhappiness. YOU should have made the change not sat around waiting for someone else to take the initiative for your happiness.
Take responsibility. Take responsibility for your feelings and emotions. Take responsibility for your actions and fuck ups. Take responsibility for your past and present. And most importantly, take responsibility for your future. If you’re not happy or fulfilled, change it. Don’t wait for a sign or for someone else to tell you it’s okay, or that it’s time…the unsettled feeling you have in your spirit IS your sign! In the end, it’s your happiness, it’s your life and you don’t get to sit back later and make excuses. You don’t get to blame everyone and every circumstance based on someone else’s action or lack of action on the fact that you wish life had been different. 
Live life dang it! We only have one. We only have a short time and then it’s gone. It’s gone and we don’t get another one. This moment is all we have in our grip. Take it. It’s yours!!!

People love their brokenness. They want to grovel in it. Wear it proud like a bright cape or blanket screaming their ailments. It is cherished even though the words they speak are of wanting to rid themselves of the poison that is thickening their blood. They chant wants of hope and lightness and ease of life but their secret is they love their brokenness. It’s grown a part of them and now they can’t see where their pain ends and their flesh begins. It becomes their identity. Death, loss, sickness, depression, loneliness and lack becomes their life anthem and as they spend their time asking the world for pity, they trick even themselves into believing they want a new way, a different outlook, but they secretly love it. After all, it is all they know. It’s consumed their being. There is no other way. 
Some people fall into this life through the inevitable hardships of life, and some people were just programmed to be this way from the beginning. They aren’t willing to make a rough cut against the grain, against all they’ve ever known. They don’t want to change their mindset or behavior. They don’t want difficult, after all, to them their whole existence has been difficult. They want easy and they just want to complain about every little thing. You mention some sweet and simple beauty of the world and they can seek out the flaw. You try to dance and shake your body in joy and they’ll sit and list all the reasons why they can’t be happy. You laugh your contagious laugh and even though it may seem to you that they are laughing along, inside they claw with all their might into the deep dark brokenness that they love. 

  
Rid your life of those people. Be the light. Be love at every turn. Hope and joy radiate from every cell, creating a vibration that drives the poisonous people away. We have no time for that bull shit. We only life 80 years if we are lucky!!! Sing out loud and dance to every song. Look like a fool and don’t give a shit. Seek out every single tiny simple beauty from the subtle way the trees dance in the wind to the giant immovable mountains etched with the waning light of the setting sun. See every sky. Clouds or no and note that it is a painting, a once in a lifetime composition just for you at just that moment. Live life goddammit! Live out loud and with every breath scream and shout your existence to the universe! What have you got to lose? 

It’s in the deep dark night when you’re stirring out of a solid sleep, maybe you’ve been dreaming and the taste of imagination is still so potent and your mind gets to thinking the clearest thoughts. The ones with the most creative spin. It’s in those moments that your mind hasn’t hardened enough to talk yourself out of ideas that you think could set the world on the right track. It’s in those soft moments when the whole thing makes sense and the solutions and creative ideas flow freely. Your brain hasn’t taken sides yet, you’re not firmed in your beliefs. It’s in those easy and creative and soft moments of the early early morning where thought is the ripest. I love those moments. 

  
Sometimes my dreams occupy fictional and non-fictional places that I continuously return to in my dream world. I’ll know that I’ve dreamed of this place before. It’s like dream de ja vu. 
I was riding my bike home after a night working at Sullivan’s Steakhouse and the sky was so freckled with bright and beautiful stars. I got the feeling that I wanted more. I was seeking the stars throughout the entire dream. It was almost like they were silently beckoning me. 

I was lost. I stumbled upon a party in a home I had been to before in my dream world and biked by all these chatty women drinking champagne. Around the corner from the party I ran into a little boy on his bike whose eyes looked like they were the painted night sky, bright blue with bright white stars. His whole body looked normal but his eyes were straight from an oil painting of the sky. Almost 2D even. It was creepy, but not in a scary way, it was a comfort. The night sky in his eyes. He was lost and didn’t want me to help him because I was a stranger but I was lost myself. 

We snuck into a home where everyone was sleeping and turned the tv on which seemed to give us some sort of direction home. I made sure he had a phone or something that he could tell the street names with and helped him get to the front door to escape. We both had bikes and moving around was cumbersome and awkward. I spun the huge lock on the big handled red door and hoisted him up the waiste high huge step that didn’t seem to be there before and he was trying to thank me but was stuttering so much I had to rush him along, someone was stirring and I knew they had a dog based on the food and water bowls on the floor right behind us. The little boy looked up at me from his belly on the step with his painted night sky eyes and said he would be okay and I shut the door and booked it to the glass back door, I could see my freedom but all of a sudden everyone was awake. The wife looked at me with disgust and she was one of the champagne girls with champagne glass in her hand and said, “Was she good Charles?” And I said, “Nonsense! I don’t do such unspeakable things,” and grabbed my bike and ran for the back door. I hopped on my bike and went around as many corners as possible and somehow was still right out front of his home. Charles came out in his robe and was chasing me, threatening me with some kind of weapon and I couldn’t get away. 

Multiple scenarios seemed to play out to different endings. One where I played like the little boy, lost and asking for help, I was laying on Charles’ lawn with his big golden retriever dog petting his paws, one where I hid in the bushes of his home right under his nose that he ran elsewhere looking for me, one where I had gotten away and was heading the wrong way against traffic on 202 and still trying to catch a glimpse of the stunning stars in the black sky but the headlights of cars were the stars. Pedaling so hard and fast but not seeming to get anywhere up the big hill. Then I woke up. 

It captivated me unlike any other dream I’ve had in a long long time. I laid in bed for a minute trying to cement the dream into my mind so I’d remember when I woke up but it impressed me so much that I couldn’t let it slip so I immediately wrote it down. They boys eyes. I’ll never forget. I keep seeing them. So weird.

  

I’ve begun whittling and carving. It’s amazing and fun. 

 A friend of mine and fellow artist and I were having an email conversation about creating. This is how I feel about creating in any way:

“And I completely understand what you mean by getting in the zen like zone. When it comes to the things we create it’s like “feeling” what is locked inside of these formless materials and letting the medium take you on its journey. We unlock the next phase of those materials lives. I am merely a vessel for the already existing beauty in the world to come to the surface. It takes a oneness with everything that is to listen and feel closely enough to allow that subtle beauty to be passed through us. We are lucky. Most people can’t even see it. Even standing in front of the most breathtaking forms of creation in this world, whether it is a human being, a painting, a building, a garden, a mountain ridge, a slice of ancient history, the depth is lost on a shallow mind and heart. But to be able to see every single thing as something so profound and so special, so unique and the product of so many things gone right in just the right procession, that’s true oneness with all that is. That’s true enlightenment. That’s why I love being an artist!!”

From the intricate design product of all of evolution to the splattering of a child’s finger paintings, this world hold so much beauty. We are so busy rushing off from one appointment to the next that strolling through the park or looking up to the painting in the sky is lost on people. 

How?! How could this be?! And how do we get back to valuing the slower pace of life. Chewing slowly to taste the chefs creation. Walking slowly to notice the buzzing of a whole buggy community right under your feet. When will we realize that more is not more, less is more. Fast isn’t efficient, slow is efficient. Let the seconds and minutes of life last a lifetime, don’t wish them away because you’re bored. If that is the case you’re not paying enough attention. You want to live longer?! You wish life could last forever? Then slow down and take a breath and feel every ounce of it travel through your nose and drip down your throat and fill up your lungs. Cherish it. See the beauty in every single simple thing. 

You’re bored in math class? Realize what that math actually means instead of stressing about the moments creeping by till the bell rings. It is the foundation, the language of all we can see and interact with. It is how we describe the world we live in. 

You wish work would go quicker? Then you’re not paying attention. Why do you do what you do? Simply to pay the bills? But what about all the magic and beauty tucked away in all the hiding places of your boring day? The miraculous beings you interact with have a world and a story of their own. Do you know anything about it or them? The system you’re a part of whether you’re pushing papers or serving tables is an intricate design of something so much bigger than this moment. Than this job. It is connected in so many ways to the beloved world and its systematic homeostasis.

 Just your breath alone is something magical and yet we check out of the process all together way too often. 

Let’s get back into touch with real life. Let’s practice mindfulness and slowing down. Let’s decide to live for today instead of wishing this life away for the promise of a hypothetical eternal life afterwards. Let’s stop writhing in uncomfortability of the boring or the mundane and seek the magic in it all. Let’s go back to that childlike wonder. 

  
After all, every single thing you touch goes on forever. Infinitely. Inward and outward, upward and downward, forward and backward. Inside that tiny leaf there is a whole story, a working world of knowledge, how it inhales carbon dioxide and exhales oxygen. How it photosynthesises light and assimilates the nutrients in the earth to become its stem and feeds the trunk of a redwood giant that lives longer than any human could ever dream! Inward, all the way down to the tiny puzzle like interlocking mechanisms that keep that leaf together all the way outward to its function in keeping our earth breathing and healthy, there is a story. A history. 

  
Forward and backward and you get this insanely amazing opportunity to be able to interact with it for a single slice of that infinite timeline. That history and intricacy exists for every single thing and being we interact with. Infinitely inward and infinitely outward there is a dance playing out. Let’s fall in love with that dance again and let this life be the finest sips of the sweetest nectar that ever could have existed. And I bet by the time it’s our time to move on from this life, if we’ve lived like that every day, we will be full enough to let it go, not regretting a single moment. 

(This post took a turn but it was meant to be.)

Love in. Love out.