I studied manifesting.

I tried.

But it never quite settled within me.

I couldn’t understand why everything seemed to point outward.

Pictures of the dream house.

The dream relationship.

The dream life.

Write it down.
Speak it aloud.
Visualize the outcome.

Then wait.

And wait.

My dreams never looked like photographs.

They felt more like a feeling.

A sense of aliveness.
A sense of belonging.
A sense that something beautiful was possible.

I could never quite get on board with manifesting.

And today, I think I finally understood why.

I walked into the assisted living home to teach my art lesson.

I was expecting one of my peeps to be absent.

Instead, there she was.

And beside her sat another familiar face.

The one who had moved away to live with her son.

I hadn’t expected to see her.

My heart immediately lifted.

She has a light about her.

The kind of person whose kindness enters the room a moment before she does.

And there she was,
sitting at the table.

No vision board.

No affirmations.

No manifesting.

Just life.

Showing up unexpectedly.

And suddenly I understood.

What I have been creating is not a life of manifestation.

It is a life with space.

Enough space for people to return.

Enough space for beauty to arrive.

Enough space for surprise.

Enough space for wonder.

As we sat together making art,
laughing and letting color speak for us,
I noticed something.

There had been a chair open.

And now she sat in it.

Perhaps that is what wonder feels like.

Not getting what we asked for.

Receiving what we didn’t know was on its way.

Space is beautiful.

Think of music.

It only becomes music because there is space between the notes.

When I stay open,
I can receive the beauty that is already arriving.

I don’t need to make it happen.

Space opens to wonder.

Wonder opens to ourselves.

So instead of:

“Manifest the life you want.”

Perhaps it becomes:

“Create enough space for the life that belongs to you.”

Instead of:

“Visualize the outcome.”

Perhaps it becomes:

“Listen for the next note.”

Instead of:

“Dig ditches so the water can arrive.”

Perhaps it becomes:

“Tend the garden and trust the rain.”

When I stay open,
I can receive the beauty that is already arriving.

I didn't realize I had missed her until she smiled.

Leave a chair open.

Wonder likes to sit down unexpectedly.

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I knew her well.

The little girl dressed as Maria,
twirling round and round beneath the soft sun of the backyard,
dreamily singing with all her heart,

“The hills are alive with the sound of music...”

And then from the bedroom window came the shout,

“Turn off that music!”

And suddenly, standing in the mountain meadow in Bavaria,
the dream fractured.

I laughed and said,

“It was me singing.”

But something inside the little girl fractured too.

The song stopped.

The music grew quiet.

Years passed.

But I always knew something was there.

That feeling.

The feeling of twirling in spacious possibilities.

For years, I sensed something just beyond my reach.

Like a light at the end of a foggy tunnel.

If I squinted from my soul,
I could almost reach it.

And then it would fade,
and I would return to my life.

My life of producing.

As most of you know by now,
I stopped producing.

And I became curious.

Where was that light?

Where was the feeling of twirling?

How do I get there?

At the beginning of this year,
after my predawn walks with puppy-boy Kenji,
I would return home,
make my beautiful tea,
and settle in with my journal and The Vein of Gold.

Month after month,
through gentle work,
the fog began to clear.

My life became quieter.

More peaceful.

Filled with discernment and fulfillment.

But something was still missing.

I had the costume.

I had the backyard.

I had the song.

But I was still missing the twirling.

And then, just this week, I found it.

Or perhaps,
it found me.

The missing piece was my art.

Not the art itself.

But the freedom within it.

I had held it tightly.

Protectively.

Lovingly.

It had carried identity,
meaning,
purpose,
even salvation at times.

And while it created beauty,
I had lost the joy of simply creating.

I realized I was homesick.

Not for childhood.

Not for another time.

But for a place within myself
that I had not inhabited for a very long time.

Longing for the girl who sang with all her being.

Longing for the freedom to twirl.

Longing for home.

I had the costume.

I had the backyard.

I had the song.

But I had closed the door to the twirling.

And then something softened.

I stopped directing.

I stopped hurrying.

I stopped asking art to carry what only life could carry.

And I discovered I could create in companionship with the Divine.

Not directed.

Not proving.

Simply creating together.

And in that discovery,
I found my twirling.

I found the freedom.

I found the joy.

I found the little girl again.

The hills are alive.

And at long last,

I came home to myself.

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Surrender.

I never quite understood what that meant.

Surrender your life to...

Surrender your dreams to...

Surrender.

I love Mary Poppins.

Stay with me; there is a tie-in here.

She arrives with the wind and simply says she will stay until the wind changes.

Perhaps surrender and the wind are old companions.

At the beginning of this year, I devoted myself more fully to my own spiritual path.
My own michi.
My own do.

道 way of life.

I was already walking it through yoga.
Through the gentle addition of Ayurvedic rhythms.
Through learning to understand my mind and body with more compassion and less force.

I felt settled.

Peaceful.

And then, one day, it dawned on me that the last part of my life waiting to change was my art.

Not my health.
Not my relationships.

My art.

You would think it would have been the first thing.

Instead, it was the last.

So I sat quietly with it.

And that is when Mary Poppins returned.

I rewatched the 1964 film and found myself enchanted all over again.

Not because of the magic.

Not because of the songs.

But because of Mary herself.

She simply is.

She moves with the wind.

And suddenly, I realized how much my art had been carrying.

Identity.

Purpose.

Livelihood.

Proof.

Healing.

Belonging.

Visibility.

Meaning.

Even salvation at times.

No wonder it had become heavy.

No wonder something needed to change.

Through my own path, I had slowly become alive enough to allow my art to be art.

Just art.

Not an answer.

Not protection.

Not evidence.

Not who I am.

Simply a companion.

Life is not easy, and I don’t think it should be.

But if we can keep our curiosity alive, and have enough faith to jump into the chalk painting with Bert, perhaps we can remember that childlike wonder that never really left us.

And perhaps that is what surrender means.

Not giving your life over to another.

But releasing what was never yours to carry.

Remembering who you were all along.

And then I understood.

The wind had changed.

Because I had stopped asking art to carry what only life could carry.

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As I tuck my word of the year, magical, into the pocket of my heart,
I step out onto the path of life.

My mornings begin gently, just before dawn.

Kenji leads the way as we walk beneath the archway of lit trees.
Off in the distance, I hear water landing softly in the pond.

I thought enchantment would arrive in grand moments.
Something magical would appear.

Instead, it arrived in softer sheets,
morning light,
handmade tea,
and blue eyes on an Elephant.

I was always pushing.
Enchantment was always there.

Only one of them had to stop.

Perhaps enchantment isn’t magic.

Perhaps it is reality felt more deeply.

I didn’t set out to become softer.
I thought I was simply becoming less driven.

Instead,
I discovered I was becoming more alive.

And life began showing itself through small things.

The softness of sheets beneath my feet.
The elephant’s eyes that I repainted.
Friendships that nourish through listening.
Laughter with my husband.
Tears of knowing.
A new yoga mat that makes me smile.

Evenings no longer need to be hurried.

Coloring in a special book until I lose track of time.
Replacing alcohol with special tonic waters.
Pouring them into a pretty hobnail glass.

Softness is not giving up.

It is allowing life to touch us again.

And perhaps what I thought I was searching for
was never another object,
another answer,
or another experience.

Perhaps it was myself.

Simple.
Present.

Already here.

Enchantment is not found by escaping life.

It is found by inhabiting it.

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I believe we arrive in this life carrying an essence.
And somewhere along the way,
many of us forget.

We are often born into emotional dramas already in progress.
We enter through the wounds, fears, and unfinished stories of others.

And without realizing it,
we learn to adapt.

We learn the patterns.
We learn the emotional weather.
We learn the roles expected of us.

In many ways, we begin living not only our own lives,
but the unlived lives surrounding us.

We are sensitive.
There is beauty in that sensitivity.

And there can also be pain.

I learned to adapt to disjointed emotional needs within my family.
And for much of my life,
it felt as though I was apologizing for another person’s disrupted behaviors.

That kind of living can quietly shape the nervous system.
Always walking carefully.
Always sensing.
Always adjusting to eggshells that were never your own.

And yet, suffering has a way of cracking open consciousness.

For me, it became the force that pushed me toward deeper selfhood.

That does not make the suffering good.
But it does mean something real can emerge through it.

Life sometimes asks us to reclaim the self that existed before adaptation.

And slowly,
we can answer.

Not by becoming someone entirely new,
but by remembering what was always there beneath the conditioning, the protection, and the survival.

We can begin reorganizing our lives around a more authentic center—
one that no longer asks us to abandon ourselves in order to belong.

And perhaps life is not merely testing our worthiness,
but shaping our consciousness.

The creative life is not invented.

It is remembered.

I have finally arrived at a place where creativity no longer feels like evidence of worth,
protection,
or survival.

It feels more like companionship.

A quiet relationship with the part of myself that was always there.

My essence was never truly lost.

It was simply covered over by adaptation.

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It’s that kind of coffee shop with grouped, mismatched couches and chairs.
Communal tables tucked into corners to create a feeling of home.

All ages gather there.
Some in conversation.
Some alone.

We sat across from one another, one on the couch and one in a soft chair,
tea and coffee warming our hands.

She could easily be my daughter, yet we share a love of boxing and of life.

By trade, she is a family therapist and is now beginning the journey of building her own business.

That was why we met—
to talk about the practical side of running a business.

But as life often does, the conversation gently shifted.

What began with structure and planning slowly moved toward something deeper—
the soul of what we create.

She shared that she felt almost obsessed with certain parts of building her business.

I understood immediately.

I have felt this same obsession within my art.
The pushing.
The striving.
The urgency to make something meaningful succeed.

And as I reflected on my own career over the past year, I realized something important:

It was often within obsession that I pushed too hard.
And somewhere along the way,
I lost the joy.

What began to change my relationship with creativity was the quiet movement from obsession into devotion.

Devotion feels different.

It softens the urgency.
It opens the heart.
It allows room for listening.

We finished our conversation smiling and hugged goodbye.

And a few days later, while quietly working, another realization came to me.

Devotion is what carried me through the many seasons of my creative life—
through uncertainty, success, change, exhaustion, and renewal.

But something else is changing now.

I have entered a quieter season of creating.

A calmer one.

My art no longer feels driven by the need to prove, explain, or search outside myself for reassurance.

This feels deeply connected to my gentle stepping away from teaching
and the soft release of the symbolism that protected me for so many years.

Not because those things were wrong.
But because they carried me to where I now stand.

And standing here, I realize my art has crossed another threshold.

It is becoming an offering.

Life, both beautiful and difficult, shapes us through experience.
And if we allow ourselves to listen, those experiences slowly become wisdom.

From that place, we begin creating differently.

Not from urgency.
Not from performance.
Not from needing to be more than we are.

But from a quieter place within ourselves.

A place that holds life gently.

And perhaps that is what an offering truly is—
not perfection,
not mastery,
but something honestly and lovingly given from the soul.

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I have always admired artists who can create freely, almost on the fly.

There is a whimsy and openness in their work that feels alive to me.

I have always considered this a gift.
A beautiful gift.

And somewhere along the way, I believed I had lost it.

Not my imagination.
Not my ability to create.

But the freedom within it.

Slowly, it had been replaced by productivity.

The business of being an artist.
Producing.
Planning.
Overworking into overproducing.

For many years, I believed this was simply what it meant to be dedicated.

And in some ways, it worked.

Until it no longer did.

In the last few years, something began shifting within me.

Perhaps it was internal.
Perhaps external.

Or perhaps it no longer matters how it began.

Only that it did.

Producing was no longer filling my cup.
Or my soul.

The shift first appeared in my teaching.
And then slowly within my own work.

The deeper I reached outside myself trying to connect, explain, and produce,
the further I drifted from the quiet joy that creativity once gave me.

And somewhere within that realization,
another way of creating began awakening.

Feathers had always brought me comfort.

After my father passed, I began finding them in unexpected places.
Places where they should not have been.

To me, they felt like reassurance.
A message from beyond myself.
A quiet reminder that I was not alone.

And then one day, they stopped appearing.

I remember looking at the collection I had carefully kept over the years and realizing I could return them to nature.

It was time.

And underneath that realization,
something softer had begun growing within me.

A calmness.
A tenderness.

Within me.

I began to understand that the hardness of constant producing was no longer necessary.

The outward symbolism that had cared for me so gently over the years was no longer something I needed to cling to.

Not because it had failed me.

But because something inside me had strengthened.

My inner self had become steady in its tenderness.

And now, it is guiding me back toward the kind of creativity I once admired so deeply in others—

the kind that allows.

The kind that listens.

The kind that does not force meaning or outcome.

But simply lets creation unfold.

And perhaps that is the gift I believed I had lost.

Only now,
it is returning differently.

Not as productivity.

But as trust.

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I came to write this essay in a roundabout way.

I had just finished watching the final episode of a very creative series, The Good Omens.

The opening segment of collage and animation stayed with me deeply.

I love the shape and movement of the two main characters as they move through their environment. The presence and dearness of the story settled within me.

The finale was witty, tender, and, in a sense, a happy ending to the story. And I quietly hoped the creator of this tale might someday find the same tenderness reflected back.

I was startled by the complexity of humanity behind it.

My curiosity arose with the strange beauty and complexity of being human.

As I sorted through my feelings, I came to the realization that we, as humans, can be deeply flawed yet still capable of creating beauty.

Perhaps it is our very humanness—our searching, our wounds, our longing—that deepens what we create.

Most of us are simply trying to find our way.

We are all fragile.

Something beautiful awakened in me through this experience.

It is the fragility that gives us our sensitivity.

And our sensitivity that helps us create.

Art can awaken something sacred within us—

even while reminding us that artists themselves remain human.

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I had just turned 60 when I first stepped into the life I am living today.

For the first time, I felt truly safe.
Free to begin listening to myself in a different way.

At first, I thought,
“Well… I’m just a late bloomer.”

I tend to be very hard on myself.

And then I realized—
perhaps I needed to offer myself a little more grace.

No.

You are not a late bloomer.

You are a bloomer.

It took what it took
to arrive here.

Everything has its season.
And within each season,
there is something beautiful unfolding in its own time.

Some flowers bloom late in the summer.
Others open quietly in the early fall.

This is their natural way.

They bloom when it is time.

And when they do,
they bring their beauty fully.

We are no different.

We each carry a creative energy within us.
And for that energy to bloom,
we must learn how to work with it instead of against it.

My early conditioning taught me to produce.
To measure my worth by what I could create, accomplish, and offer outwardly.

And so I did.

For most of my life, it worked.

I created endlessly.
Taught deeply.
Pushed myself beyond what felt sustainable.

Until something began to change.

My one-of-a-kind pieces slowly shifted from outward symbolism
into something more internal.
More personal.
More alive.

And without fully realizing it,
I began overwhelming both myself and my students with too much information, too much meaning, too much intensity.

It was all becoming too much.

And then came the Madonnas.

As I completed the final piece,
I realized they had been gently tapping on the door of my inner life all along.

They were helping me heal something ancestral within myself.
Helping me soften.
Helping me listen.

And perhaps most importantly—
helping me open the door to a part of myself
I was finally ready to experience.

Now I stand at another threshold.

This next body of work,
Creatures of the Divine,
feels entirely different.

It begins with the Elephant.

But this time,
I do not want to rush to capture the image.

I do not want to sketch quickly
or decide everything in advance.

I want to listen.

I want the piece to reveal itself slowly.
Emotionally.
Naturally.

These new creations feel like seeds resting quietly beneath dark soil—

not absent,
not lost,
but preparing.

Waiting for the right season to emerge.

And perhaps that is what blooming truly is.

Not becoming something quickly.

But allowing yourself to unfold
when the time is right.

And somehow…

it is always right on time.

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I find that creating a series gives the idea space.

Space to be individual while still in coherence with the others.

As I created Corazón, the Heart, I felt she spoke differently, in that the word itself is rooted in courage.

LINK here to see more photos!

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My Galleries Website

I have found myself drawn to certain subjects with almost a sense of devotion.

While others are fleeting, lasting only a few hours, months, or a season of life.

And I began to wonder why that is.

Why do some things stay with us for years, or even a lifetime,
while others quietly fade away?

I have noticed there are certain subjects I want to return to again and again.
I want to understand them more deeply.
Something in me feels alive in their presence.

And I began to wonder if attention itself creates energy.

Energy follows attention.

What we continually return to begins shaping our inner world.
It influences what we notice, what we seek, and how we move through life.

During the pandemic, many of us were searching for comfort, meaning, and some sense of safety.

We each found it in different ways.

At that time, I found myself drawn toward art and spiritual symbolism that felt reflective and intuitive.

My interest in oracle cards deepened—not only because of their artistic beauty, but because of the feeling and meaning they seemed to hold.

I collected them and still have a beautiful collection.

But over time, something softened.

As I came into a deeper understanding of myself, I noticed my attention changing.
The urgency was no longer there.

Now, my interest feels quieter.
More spacious.

The Marys still remain with me—Mother Mary, Guadalupe, Magdalene—
but in a gentler way.

And I realized something important:

Sometimes we lose interest in things because they have already given us what we needed from them.

Not every path is meant to remain forever.

Some things awaken us.
Some comfort us.
Some guide us through periods of transition.

Neither is more important than the other.

Each has its place.

And over time, certain paths deepen into devotion.

They stop feeling like stimulation and begin to feel like home.

There is meaning in them.
A quiet steadiness.

Not boredom.
Not urgency.

But recognition.

And then there are the energies that continue making our hearts sing.

They remain.

They excite us while also bringing a feeling of comfort and belonging.

Almost as though something within us remembers.

That is how I feel about my Asian studies.

The aesthetics.
The philosophy.
The culture.

It all feels strangely familiar to me.

Not as escape—
but as resonance.

Not simply an interest,
but a home for part of my soul.

And perhaps that is the difference.

Some energies are bridges.

And some…
we are meant to live within.

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As my life changed, I found myself returning to some of my most meaningful pieces — not only to revisit them, but to understand them differently.

Now, I recreate them through the eyes of the woman I have become.

Warmth and Friendship. Prosperity.
Tenacity.
Transformation and Strength.
Change.

Details:
Part of the Ito Series:
Construction: Body: Hand-sculpted clay (jointed) head. Body Fabric- linen weave silk with printed Mehndi print on forehead, hands, and feet.
Costume- Silks of dupioni, vintage kimono.
Size: 27.5 inches. Wall-mounted.
-Held in a private collection.

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My Art

We live our experiences.

They become our stories.

They become how we see the world.

They become how we live our lives.

It can be a beautiful world or a tragic world.

Or a bit of both.

Ten years ago, I had a chance encounter that changed my life.

I would not have recognized it or even been open to it if I had continued living in my old stories.

If I hadn’t challenged myself to find meaning in the uncomfortable.

If I hadn’t looked at myself closely,

I would not be where I am today.

Happy, feeling safe, and growing.

The thing is, unless we’re receptive and have learned to be open, we may not even know when an opportunity comes our way.

It is in this chance that I encountered a man of 6’2” with an Irish charm and a deep love of the game of Rugby. So very different from my world, art, and yoga.

It would have been easy to dismiss his invitation to dinner if I had still been living in my old stories.

Instead, I chose to let the door open to another world.

What made this possible

was not fantasy or escape.

It was the work I had already done within myself.

It required a certain openness in my attitude, and a willingness to hear the voice within that says, “I would enjoy that.”

There was no need

to turn the moment into a future.

I no longer needed to build a story around what it might become.

It was a matter of trust in myself, and therefore I could trust the opportunity.

It wasn’t to make me feel better or happier; it was to enjoy the moment with this man.

Now, married to Sean, I have found that it has filtered into every part of my life. There is space for each of us to move and live.

There is space for each of us to grow separately,

which somehow brings us closer together.

Once we have trust in ourselves, we have something to reflect on. We can make meaning. We can have a process of discernment.

It’s really about an inner process of giving something a little space to

move around in our heads, our bodies, our souls.

To discover who we are,

and slowly learn to share that honestly with another,

may be one of the most meaningful parts of being alive.

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She said she felt lost.

Not in the dramatic sense—
but in the quiet way
where nothing fits anymore.

What once held her interest
no longer did.

She was searching for a new path,
but there was no direction.

And in that space,
she turned on herself.

Frustrated.
Upset.
Certain she had failed.

The space around her felt empty.

I listened…
and remembered.

I have stood in that place too.

Where everything stops.
Where the path ends.
Where you feel as though
you have hit something solid and final.

A wall.

It is a lonely place.

It can take your feet out from under you.
Tighten the chest.
Scatter the mind.

You begin to question everything—
your choices,
your direction,
your ability to move forward at all.

You look back,
searching for something to return to.

But nothing fits there either.

And so you stand…
with no clear way forward
and no desire to go back.

And what begins to rise
is a quiet desperation—

to do something.
Anything.
Just to feel movement again.

But what we rarely understand in that moment
is this:

What feels like an ending
is happening at the same time
as a beginning.

Death and rebirth
do not come separately.

They arrive together.

There is something within you
that has always been there—

waiting.
quietly.
patiently.

And now, for the first time,
it has space.

That emptiness you feel
is not failure.

It is room.

Room for something new
to be felt.
to be known.
to begin.

You were never lost.

You have simply reached
the edge of who you were.

And from here,
there is no map.

No clear plan.

Only a small, quiet invitation—

to begin.

Not by knowing,
but by moving.

And in that movement,
your direction will reveal itself.

Not all at once.

But enough
for the next step.

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This past week, I turned 68.

I have come to love my “8” years.

They seem to arrive after a period of quiet transition—
a soft undoing of what came before.

This past year was no different.

Looking back, it was a year of discernment.
A year where quiet spoke loudly.

Not in words—
but in what I could no longer ignore.

I began to understand that if I was to move forward,
I needed to step inward.

To listen.
To be present within myself.

It began in the body.

A shoulder injury that asked for patience.
Time.
Care.

It would have been easy to push through,
to override it as I have done so many times before.

But something in me said no.

And then, life deepened the message.

A couple of unexpected medical issues.
Tests.
Waiting.

And alongside that,
family and friends facing their own diagnoses.

Moments like these have a way of shifting everything.

They bring you closer
to the truth of your own life.

To your own mortality.

And in that space,
something in me softened.

For most of my life, I have been a warrior.

Strong.
Capable.
Enduring.

But this year asked something different of me.

It asked me to become gentle.

To begin nurturing myself
in a way I had not fully allowed before.

And that required listening.

Not the kind of listening that gathers information—
but the kind that feels.

My practices began to change.

In kickboxing, I no longer struck the bag.
I softened the movement.
Used weights.
Moved with awareness instead of force.

In yoga, I could still do most everything—
but I slowed down.

I listened.

And slowly, this way of being began to move into everything.

Including my work.

For so many years, I have been a teacher.
I love sharing.
I love guiding others toward what is possible within them.

But toward the end of last year, something shifted.

I found myself looking back—
noticing that I had been asking too much.

Of myself.
Of my students.

There was too much information.
Too much doing.

Not enough space.

So I listened again.

And I slowed down.

And I realized—
I could no longer teach in the same way.

Now, my art and my voice are changing.

Less direction.

More presence.

Less teaching.
More sharing from what is lived.

So that others may find their own meaning
in their own way.

And here I am now.

Without a clear map.
Without a defined outcome.

Not building toward something.

But forming.

Becoming something I do not yet fully understand.

And for the first time…

I am allowing that to be enough.

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Over the years, you changed,
as you followed what felt true,
and you began to notice—
certain people quietly disappeared.

And now you are left standing.

Alone.

Just yourself.

The question arises…
where do you go from here?

One moment, there is a sense of freedom.

And the next—
a quiet that feels almost too still.

It catches your breath.

And yet…
your breath is steady.

More steady than the fear.

Not every step will feel comfortable.

But something begins to emerge—
a quiet clarity.

And from that clarity…
a gentle courage.

If that courage isn’t here yet,
that’s okay.

There are moments
when you simply remain where you are.

Holding steady.

Giving yourself
patience.
Grace.

Because sometimes
it is in the quiet
that the path begins to reveal itself.

And with it…
your courage.

Because even here—
in the quiet—
you are not without belonging.

You are not lost.
You are becoming.

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Have you ever noticed

that when you begin to step into a truer version of yourself…

something unexpected happens?

People don’t always resist.

They don’t argue.

They don’t push back.

They simply… fade.

At first, this can feel disheartening.

Confusing, even.

You may wonder—

Did I do something wrong?

Did I lose something?

Was it rejection?

I began to see a pattern in my own life.

Over the years, as I changed,

as I followed what felt true,

certain people quietly disappeared.

I had built a beautiful dollmaking studio over 18 years—

a space filled with creativity, connection, and devotion.

And then, when life asked something different of me,

I let it go.

What surprised me most

was not the decision itself—

but how quickly

many of those connections faded.

Not with conflict.

Not with closure.

Just… absence.

This happened again

when my art began to change.

I remember someone telling me

they preferred my earlier work.

But what they didn’t see

was that the new work

was born from something deeply lived—

my journey with my father

through his illness and passing.

It wasn’t a style change.

It was a life change.

And then again, more recently,

when I stepped away from teaching online.

A few kind words came through.

But mostly… silence.

And I noticed something.

Each time I shifted—

not for strategy,

not for growth,

but for truth—

the same pattern appeared.

People didn’t reject me.

They simply no longer recognized

where they fit.

There is a moment

when you begin to understand—

this is not rejection.

It is realignment.

They were connected to who I was.

To what I offered then.

To the energy I carried at that time.

And as I changed,

that connection no longer held in the same way.

Not wrong.

Not hurtful.

Just complete.

When I stopped adjusting myself

to meet others where they were,

I also stopped being

who they expected me to be.

And that can feel like loss—

until something deeper settles in.

A quiet knowing.

That you are no longer here

to maintain connection

at the cost of yourself.

You are here to live

in alignment with what is true now.

I am walking a path

that is still unfolding.

One step at a time.

Still discovering it as I go.

And because of that,

not everyone will understand it.

How could they?

Even I am still learning the terrain.

There is less urgency now

to be seen,

to be followed,

to be understood.

And more space

to listen.

To create.

To be.

Some people may return.

New ones may arrive.

But the number matters less

than the resonance.

Fewer voices.

Deeper connection.

A quieter, more honest exchange.

My work now asks to be entered slowly.

To be felt.

Not consumed.

This is my voice.

And for the first time—

it feels like enough.

For most of my life, I have been a warrior.

You may know this part of yourself too—

the one who holds everything together,

who steps in when others cannot

or will not.

You may have been shaped this way.

Taught to be the strength,

the steadiness.

For me, it became a force

that everyone relied on.

I was quick.

Bold.

Precise.

Always able to sense an upset

before it arrived.

Perhaps you know this feeling—

dropping everything to be there,

while quietly leaving yourself behind.

And then, one day, I stopped.

Not gradually.

Not gracefully.

I simply could not continue

as I had before.

You may have felt this too—

that moment when what once defined you

no longer fits.

You can feel it.

But you do not yet have the words.

My life unraveled.

The wheel I had built

began to lose its spokes,

one by one.

The outcry was real.

And it was painful.

Relationships ended.

Some abruptly.

Many were angry.

Of course they were—

now they had to depend on themselves.

I was called many names.

And in that space,

I felt something

I had never allowed before—

the loneliness

of no longer being

who others expected me to be.

To be misunderstood.

To be judged.

To feel… rejected.

It was a lonely place.

There I stood—

breath knocked out of me,

with no clear path forward.

This was not the kind of path

I knew how to walk.

I felt unsteady.

Frantic.

And yet…

there was a quiet beauty

in that unraveling.

Clarity began to emerge.

I could see

who I could trust—

and who I could not.

More importantly,

I began to feel

where I was safe.

For the first time,

I could feel for myself.

And that…

is a profound moment.

Looking back,

I wish I had trusted this part more.

Because this is the place

where you discover

you do have wings—

even if you are not yet sure

how to use them.

A place where you begin to notice

you can stretch them wide

without anyone trying to clip them.

And still…

you are not quite sure

if you know how to fly.

For the first time in my life,

the path ahead

was my own.

There was freedom in that.

But my life had been shaped

by being quick, bold, and precise.

This new way

asked something entirely different.

To feel.

To slow down.

To listen

before moving.

And in that slowing…

something unexpected

began to form.

This is not a change

that happens overnight.

It is a gentle turning.

A soft awareness

that grows over time.

Your body must learn

it is safe.

And that takes time.

Ten years later,

mine has.

There is a settledness now.

A quiet knowing

that I no longer need

to live in urgency.

This past year,

I made another shift.

I stepped away

from 35 years of teaching.

From coaching.

Not because I had nothing left to give—

but because something deeper

was asking to emerge.

For the first time in my life,

I am allowing softness.

And in that softness,

I am discovering who I truly am.

There is no longer a need

to gather and translate information

for others.

My lived experience

is now my offering—

through my writing,

through my art.

This path feels deeply aligned.

And I find myself

quietly protective of it.

Because something new

has taken root.

It is this softness

that has led me

to a new kind of precision.

Not the sharp, forceful precision

of survival—

but a quiet knowing.

I can feel

what is aligned.

And just as clearly,

what is not.

My life is growing.

Not in visible leaps—

but in deep, steady roots.

And strong, steady wings

ready for flight.

You may find yourself here too—

where what once made you strong

no longer feels true.

And you may begin to wonder…

what might emerge

if you allowed softness

to lead.

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Have you felt it?

We notice it has been there all along, a longing, quiet but persistent.

It may show up as an emotion or a sensation in the body, a quiet signal that something within us is asking to be noticed.

We all have a sense of desire to seek. We long for something unknown. We can feel it. It is a force driven by a hushed need.

We are, by nature, seekers.

So we search outward.

Yet the feeling we are chasing often comes from within.

And when we continue looking outside ourselves, we may spend an entire lifetime trying to fill that longing.

What if longing is not a problem to be fixed?

What if the longing we feel is something that can be found in our hearts?

What if it is not a problem but a gift we are to give ourselves?

It is not an emptiness to be filled but a gentle guidance forward.

I began to notice something over time.

The longing in me, even as a child, was to be heard and understood.

And somehow, without planning it, that longing found its way into my art.

When I was creating, I did not need to explain myself.

The colors, the forms, the quiet hours of making were already speaking.

Slowly, I began to understand the difference.

Longing is energy.

It is easy to be swept away and scatter it outward.

Devotion is where we place that energy.

When we root it into something meaningful, it finds a place, and the direction becomes clear.

Longing is the urgency to find something to fill the space.

Devotion is gentle and steady.

My longing turned into devotion as I realized it was a quieter, calmer sense within me. My art became my devotion.

Devotion is not dramatic. It is repetition.

It is showing up again and again, often quietly, often unnoticed.

I find it flows gently into all parts of my life.

In what I eat, in how I write, in my yoga practice, my art, and in how I walk through this world.

In my devotion, my heart has a voice.

It all becomes connected.

When an unexpected situation arises, I sometimes feel that old sense of longing return.

I stop and give myself a moment.

Give myself some grace and space so I can take a breath and move through it.

In that pause, I remember that nothing outside of me needs to complete what is already steady within.

Longing becomes peaceful when it finds a place to rest in devotion.

What might happen if you treated that longing as an invitation to devotion instead of a problem?

Perhaps the longing we feel is not asking to be filled, but something asking to be honored.

And sometimes the way we honor it is through devotion.

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I love yoga—the practice and the philosophy. It has shaped how I live my life. I have been devoted to it for over thirty years and still practice four times a week.

…and right about now you may be thinking, “I’m not going to do that.”

I know.

This is not about convincing you to start yoga. There is a bigger picture here for all of us humans.

My Unbalance

At the beginning of a yoga practice, you are asked to set an intention.

This morning, as I continue placing more emphasis on my art and writing, the perfect word came to mind: balance.

And what was the focus of the class that day?

Balance.

During one pose I simply didn’t have it. I tipped, wobbled, and rolled right over.

I laughed.

That is the practice of yoga.

It’s why it is called a practice. You never achieve perfection. You just keep returning, adjusting, trying again.

Which got me thinking about balance in life.

What Balance Is Supposed to Be

We hear a lot about living a “balanced life.” It’s often described as a careful equation: balancing work, relationships, health, and personal happiness.

The ideal sounds appealing—physical, mental, and social well-being all neatly aligned.

But the reality?

Life doesn’t move that way.

We slip easily into work-hard mode. Jobs demand us. Families need us. Friends expect us to show up, sometimes at the drop of a dime.

Over time, the pressure to keep up can quietly turn into perfectionism. Our schedules become rigid, our days packed. We move from one obligation to the next without realizing we’ve stopped actually living our lives.

And when we finally pause, it often looks like a reward system: a glass of wine…or two…okay maybe three. An extra topping on that double scoop of ice cream. A little shopping “therapy.”

None of these things are wrong. But they rarely restore balance.

What Balance Actually Is

Here’s the truth I keep learning on the yoga mat:

Balance is not something you achieve and hold forever.

Balance is something you continually find again.

Life will always bring moments that throw us off—sometimes by choice, sometimes not. The skill is not preventing the wobble. The skill is learning how to recover.

Balance is movement, not a static state.

It requires flexibility—emotionally, physically, and mentally. It asks us to soften our perfectionism and treat ourselves with a little more kindness.

In yoga, when I topple out of a pose, I don’t quit the class.

I laugh.

Then I try again.

Life can work the same way.

When things tip, when plans unravel, when the day feels chaotic, we can learn ways to settle our nervous system and regain our footing.

Not perfectly.

Just enough to stand again.

Because balance isn’t about never falling.

It’s about remembering that we can.

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