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a volcano

i am in detroit after a coast-to-coast family visit trip that was incredibly sweet, deep, full of near death experiences. there’s a lot that happened that i don’t need to write about – we all have our own miracles.

but there is one thing i want to share.

the shifts i have made in my life to give myself more time to be – be with myself, with my family, be what i am called to be, value what i am more than what i do – have already yielded tectonic results.

i understand myself to be an earth in the purest sense of the metaphor…the deeper i press, the more unbridled sun-like heat bursts up from me and reshapes even the surface. i don’t know the science of it, but i have been wondering if the sun was an earth, or will be one…i know the sun is me, the source of all that i am…i am alive in a way the moon cannot be, the sun and i are of something common, and i feel like a tree before the fire, coiled up heat just waiting to reshape everything.

the deeper i press into myself, the more that comes pouring up, new ways of thinking and processing which feel…purifying. this new energy is clearing out tired ideas, old processes which don’t serve me, clearing my life of activities and individuals who don’t feel like a space for transformation. i am not surrounding myself with easy people or moments, but leaning into spaces where there’s openness to mutual changing, shared discomfort before new flight.

this shifting shows up in songs, poems, ideas, dreams, and even my capacity to be in conversation and relationship to others.

this shows up in massive questions banging around in my mind right now, which i am wondering if i have the courage to ask in print, online, out loud. i don’t want to cast a shadow on this moment in history, i think it has as much potential as the moment that just passed and the one to come to be a transformative moment. but how do we stop looking so far ahead we can’t see success, or so far behind we can’t remember how things actually happened through our nostalgia. how can we learn to be in the present, creating our best possible existence in that moment?

being, creating, forgiving, reflecting, evolving, being – all at once.

for 2011 i plan to write, write about these questions, write what i want to know about in the world, write science fiction, write about love, write/illustrate books for kids, write recipes, write letters, write memoirs. i want to challenge myself to open up even further, letting everything you see give way for something more pure to emerge, the truest words i have to offer, just to know what it feels like as a human being to live right now and speak what is present.

i think there is solid ground in the fire.