I quickly left the house without any makeup on. I rarely wear it anyways these days, but I still think makeup is fun.

This morning I really wanted to get a peaceful walk in. We are having one of those perfect gray days where it’s nice and cool.

Leaving my Invisalign in the house and not having them on my teeth is a “no no” but my teeth have been shifting and straightening just fine when I do this. Early on I very closely adhered to having them in as close to 24/7, but today having this walk and writing a blog at the same time.

Normally I wouldn’t share a photo of myself, much less would I share a photo of myself like this, but I’m pretty sure that happiness is good enough for me. See the above picture is from the stone I saw immediately after leaving my house, giving me a most lovely message.

My 40th birthday is coming up soon, and I’m coming to terms with it, being reflective, purposeful, inspired.

‘Age’ messages have been coming up all over the place. I was listening to podcast with face reader Lillian Bridges and this one caught my eye. I want to do this earlier, I thought.

Then I saw this one above, and I am thinking of ways to be adventurous includes sharing this picture of me on my blog. Why not?

I hope, you, my readers are well. I look forward to “seeing” you again, soon! I’m going to enjoy my walk now…. just wanted to share 💗

“Perfectionism is a virus, widespread in Western culture, which keeps us running on the treadmill of never-enoughness.”

Took-pa Turner, from Belonging: Remembering ourselves home.

I’ve been giving my blog a rest. Like when the digestive system has been through so many new tastes and flavors, and maybe it has been “detoxing” from the outside world. The digestive system is the entry way to the external world, much like the lungs and the skin, as is my blog. It’s important to narrow these windows so that one’s insides are cast in far more light. It’s called focus, and it’s a beautiful and underestimated ability.

My blog is like skin, facing the outside world, but it needs hydration from me. It’s no longer about the things it was about before, and still, it is. It’s being exfoliated. It’s wonderful, and it happens, in part, with this resting process. Meanwhile a new layer of skin is prepared, effortlessly.

Freshness and inspiration has been flowing through (“new blood”) in the brief moments I get away from being on Zoom for necessary work, and from parenting and also trying to maintain my home, study, collaborate, and while still giving inner air to my dreams. The dreams that are born in the decisions I make today. The work I do is still based on my decisions I made ~4-5 years ago.

During lockdown, I’ve been less bothered by the rules around me and more grateful for the personal decisions and all the power I have over my every day life.

There have been so many stressful times. There have been lots of toss-and-turn nights, but in the end, or at the pause, there’s tremendous inner peace. There’s also excitement and potential everywhere I look. We live in rapidly changing times; innovation is the necessity of the day, and we already know thanks to Plato, “Necessity is the Mother of Invention.” So, who is the Mother of the Mother of Invention? Silence? The pause? Yes, the pregnant pause!

I’ve been watching my daughter grow and my laceration wound on my hand heal. I could easily have put all my attention into this and not done the 500 million other things I’m doing (including other body processes). But consider this: my heart did not stop beating because my hand was cut. My heart and all my body processes, in part, did their main jobs, which contributed to the good of my healing my laceration wound. Win-win for the whole body.

Sure I had to adapt a lot, but mostly that was in my innovation for dressing and caring for my wound while using my hand to care for my wiggly child.

How can anyone even talk about perfection in all this? The concept of perfection is a bit of a black hole. It sucks up the available energy by condensing it, focusing it. I think perfection is awesome, but it’s useless to fret over in organic inter-connected systems. I’ve been listening to podcasts about non-linear systems, but I haven’t delved into the modeling myself. The fact that it is possible to model the non-linear is pretty amazing to me!

We are already living in perfection. The rest of what we do, when we have the opportunity, when we aren’t immediately faced with maintaining our skin and our respiration, is our choice. Choice and perfection don’t exist in the same universe, but they also do and they have everything to do with each other. Once one chooses, one creates. Once one creates, one improves, and we never want that to stop.

We don’t want life to stop, because the animation, movement, Is the perfection.

The stars have aligned,
in a way,
that shows me-
back into the past
and into the present…

all those carrots i was chasing

were different from the one i’m walking in-step with now,

because all those other carrots,

🥕they are already in the bag.

i can see them now, the veil removed,
a re-newed sense of freedom.

those other carrots were old versions of me.

While farmer’s might be thinking this moon is a strawberry,

for me it’s the hardy, sweet root of purpose, restored.