I grew up in Lakewood, Colorado — a lovely upper-middle-class suburb just west of Denver, basically a highway exit off I-70 as the hordes head toward the ski resorts. Helter-skelter drivers from Texas and Southern California with absolutely no clue how to drive in snow. My father taught me early how to spot and carefully avoid any car with rental plates or obvious signs whose driver confidence far exceeded their traction. For the record, this was also the same father (because love and labor often arrived together) who handed me a shovel and declared the horseshoe-shaped driveway needed to be cleared — or at least half of it — so he could back down super fast and get himself gloriously stuck in the unplowed street under what felt like three feet of snow. I was shorter then, so maybe it was less. Or more. It felt biblical. Either way, I learned early: snow is not to be toyed with and does not care about your plans.

Apparently there isn’t as much snow as there used to be. I’m in upstate New York now, so I can’t compare directly, but according to my family still in the Mile High City, they barely had one polite little snowstorm all winter. Climate change? (pin dropping) Oh God. Never mind. I retract the question. Who knows. Everyone knows. Whatever. I won’t live long enough to referee the planet, and I didn’t have kids for a reason — add that to the list. I concern myself with what I can shovel, salt, and sweep in my own square footage. And that, ladies and gentlemen, was a spectacular digression. I was going to talk about snow-shoveling lessons.

My last post was called Sacred Mundane. That one was about organizing memorabilia. Consider this the sequel — same growth opportunity, different prop. This time: shoveling snow. I have extensive, hands-on experience with frozen water in all its dramatic personalities — heavy, fluffy, wet, dense, crunchy, passive-aggressive. Someone once told me Eskimos have a hundred words for snow. Then someone else told me that’s a hoax and politically incorrect to say Eskimo. Pluto’s not a planet. Denver barely gets snow. Used cars are pre-owned. Layoffs are right-sizing. The verbal rulebook keeps getting revised. Sounds like a strange children’s song. E-I-E-I-O. Anyway.

I shovel the porches here at my lodge (it is a lodge, and yes, it rocks). There are five stone porches — some covered, some not — plus a generator that must be dug out and a runway cleared in front of the garage so Chris can arrive heroically with his Ventrac snow-blower extraordinaire. That machine is a beast. I’ve never driven it myself — by choice. The cabin is heated, it has flashing lights, and multiple attachments: lawn mower in summer, leaf blower in fall. It’s basically a Swiss Army knife with horsepower. Meanwhile, I do the manual labor, which is, objectively, excellent exercise. Until a couple of years ago, though, I stoically belly-ached through every shovel full — and by belly-ached, I mean with a grudge, a grimace, a chip on my shoulder — head down, back strained, staging a full-on internal silent protest.

At some point in the recent past, I decided to investigate the belly-aching and make a slightly unhinged attempt to enjoy the shoveling — all of it. The ritual of getting dressed toasty. The good boots (I have at least ten pairs to choose from, easily). Heated hand warmers — not needed today, but emotionally reassuring. The politically incorrect real fur furry cap with ear flaps Mom gave me years ago. What’s not to love? Oh right. The actual shoveling. So there I was, fully suited and slightly smug, trying to pay attention to the thoughts running on auto-replay — the ones that reliably ended with me being pissy, annoyed, or brain checked out entirely.

Thoughts? Oh, I had a few. A few thousand. Exaggerating? I’ll never tell. Spoiler: I didn’t count. But the content was not pleasant. That was the issue. The snow hadn’t changed. The shovel hadn’t changed. The porch hadn’t changed. My back wasn’t sore — yet. My feet were warm. My hands were warm. The only real storm was the soundtrack in my own head: what to do, what not to do, how long this should take, why this shovel sucks, why the broom needs to be thicker, denser, bigger. Whine. Whine. Whine. It wasn’t the weather or the task making me miserable. It was my own internal nonstop negative commentary. No blizzard required.

So I’ve been working on this for years now — embarrassing, I know. How long should it take to shovel joyfully? Watching, listening, and redirecting my own mind like a two-year-old newly fluent in “No,” determined to stage a protest at every turn. Over and over again, swapping complaint for curiosity. Choosing pause instead of judgment. Steering the drama toward something actually worth being present for. And it’s working. Annoyingly well. Every time I dismantle one delusion, I neatly discover the next one tucked right behind it. Today, for example: new material. The perfectionist narrative had shape-shifted into irritation at my own physical incompetence. Fantastic. A fresh flavor of nonsense. It took about three seconds to notice and pivot. What if — stay with me — I actually paused before moving? What if I took aim instead of flailing with confidence? What if I slowed down long enough to turn the broom sideways and wedge the bristles between the wall and the railing where they actually needed to go, instead of rushing, flailing, and staging another internal protest? Angry lesson. Again. Growth apparently comes in layers. Damn. Yeah.

And there it was. Another reminder that I don’t need teachers or guides, lesson plans or classrooms, retreats or the guru flavor of the month to keep growing and stay happy, joyous, and FREE. I can learn everything I need from shoveling snow. From organizing drawers. From partnering. From paying attention. From living in the moment, inside out — shovel in hand, coach and keeper of my own damn emotions and the thoughts they generate.​

Field Guide Rule #22: Pay attention - over and over. The onion peeling is never done. No lesson plan or guru required.

Rear Viewing At Its Best

​I have a weird habit of cleaning out closets and boxes and drawers and bins when I’m bored or when I feel like moving around and doing something vaguely productive without dragging out cleaning tools or committing to a full-blown house overhaul. It’s low-risk transformation. Contained chaos. Manageable and deeply satisfying time spent.

A couple of weeks ago, the target was a cute and efficient little plastic expanding folder, maybe 4x6 inches. It houses my laminated goodnesses—quotes, daily practices, prayers, reminders, mantras, images of inspiration or caution… the laminated greatest hits. My book, Freedom: A Field Guide, is full of them and yes, you can download them from my website (YEAH). As I flipped through the tiny archive, I noticed something I had once deemed worthy of typing, printing, and laminating: a list of the 10 Illusions from Communion with God by Neale Donald Walsch.

OH MY GOD. I had completely forgotten about that book. Like the last book by Dr. David R. Hawkins, it had all the juicy stuff my brain could actually metabolize. Not floaty. Not abstract. Not incense-heavy. Just clean, direct, slightly confrontational clarity. And apparently in 2016 I was so struck by it that I made myself a laminated cheat sheet like a spiritual Girl Scout badge.

Naturally, life intervened. Enter any number of distractions—ideas, sounds, kitty squeaks, guinea pig wheets, UPS or FedEx deliveries, random whatever—and the nifty pouch went right back onto the shelf. Cabinet door closed. Forgotten. Yet noted internally. This is how I record God winks. A flash of recognition. A light bulb. A subtle internal click that says, “Pay attention.” I capture it. Shelve it. This if so future-me to easily identify any second wink—proof positive that action, not just recognition, may be in order. My signal to get curious and investigate.

Fast forward to a few days ago. Cleaning again. Organizing. Removing fluff from my extensive storage of personal journals. The boxes are labeled by year—because of course they are—so I could, in theory, find something specific if I remembered a date. Otherwise, they’ve just been sitting safely until I felt moved to do something more. During or just after a meditation, I got a very clear instruction: “JOURNALS OUT!” Not subtle. Not metaphorical. Capital letters in my head. With a visual so obvious it bordered on bossy. Clear message. Doable. Fun, even. The visual very similar to the image I included here.
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So the journals moved from back closet shelves to a new metal unit squarely in my tripping zone. If I was going to avoid them, I’d have to step around them, often. I decided to review my sorting by year and discovered a task I had apparently assigned myself long ago: remove all the blank pages from these journals. Save space you space creator you! No problem, you say. Well. Perhaps. Or NOT.

A significant number of the journals were “unfinished” meaning, they had 10–50 blank pages at the back. If there was more than 75% blank pages I set it aside for further review. An old habit of mine: start a journal, then migrate to the newer, sparkly, glitter-covered one I just purchased because clearly that one would inspire me SOOOO much more and totally change my life. So there I was, ripping out page after page of pristine paper from journals of all shapes, sizes, spirals, hard bound, 10-20-40 years old... 

Five to ten pounds of blank pages went into the recycling bin. Years ago, I would have agonized over that. I would have chopped them into notepads, saved them “just in case,” whispered the word waste like it was a moral failing. Not this time. The happy recycle bin received them with gratitude and zero ceremony. Space cleared. Timeline refreshed. Physical evidence of becoming, consolidated and within arm’s reach.

Of course I was re-acquainted with the existence and location of my 1995 Vision Quest journal. My 2001 France travel journal. My “From the Road” RV adventure emails circa 2002. A whole archive of former selves waving politely from their labeled boxes. And then—inside a 90% blank journal from 2016—I found my extensive handwritten notes on Communion with God. The precursor to the laminated gem I had stumbled across weeks before. I actually laughed.

There it was. Past-me, carefully outlining insights about illusion and separation and divine access like she had just cracked the cosmic code. And apparently she had. Because reading through those notes, I wasn’t horrified or traumatized by how much I had forgotten. I was struck by how familiar they felt. I carefully removed and stapled the pages, donated the rest of the mostly-blank journal, and placed the notes next to the book on the shelf in the other room—with a quiet promise to revisit them soon. (Stay tuned for another essay regarding that amazing trip down memory lane in detail. Suffice it to say that confronting the limiting beliefs revealed by that book was the beginning of Freedom for me.)

And here’s the kicker. This is not the first time I’ve done this. Back in 2015, when I first started my blog, I created a separate page called “LOOK BACK.” The premise was simple: pull a random journal, open to a random page, read what I wrote years ago, and reflect on it publicly. It was inspiring. It was humbling. It was occasionally horrifying. Most of the time, I didn’t remember the “lesson” at all. Or worse—I was forced to confront the fact that I had already known something I had recently re-learned the hard way. Painfully.
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The Look Back was born from that realization. The slightly uncomfortable awareness that growth is not linear and wisdom is not permanent. That sometimes we don’t forget the lesson—we just need to live it again at a deeper octave or from a different perspective. And now here I am again. Rearview viewing.

Realizing that maybe—just maybe—I’ve internalized more than I give myself credit for. That my process works. That the practices work. That the laminating, the journaling, the meditating, the pausing, the “JOURNALS OUT!” obedience… it all adds up. Apparently I don’t need to remember every insight in real time. Sometimes I just need to live long enough to recognize it when it circles back around. Sacred, mundane, metal shelving unit or nifty expanding folder and all.

Field Guide Rule #28: Growth is not linear. Wisdom is not permanent. Welcome to being human.

It was my fourth voice lesson. Francesca insisted on expanding my range into the highly uncomfortable upper third of the musical staff. She insisted, and I tried very hard to believe her when she said there was nothing wrong with my voice—that I could hit the notes. She swore she had heard me sing them before. I vaguely remembered that being true, but I hadn’t taken consistent lessons in years. Off and on with Francesca’s half-hour weekly lessons (voice, guitar, or piano) for over a decade. I started before I got sober—which is a milestone cairn for measuring a lot of things now. There’s a truly entertaining story in there, for sure, but that’s for another day—and another book. Wink, wink. I digress.

She mentioned muscle memory. I asked about confidence building. We eventually settled on the fact that my voice was capable—it was fear that was squeezing it. The automatic tightening began somewhere near A#. Above that? Lockdown. Freeze. Abort mission. Suddenly it made sense. It connected to all the other work I’ve been practicing. Hello! Relaxing on demand is at least one of the goals of meditation. So many meditations begin by relaxing the body part by part. I couldn’t hear “afraid” in the moment because I wasn’t consciously afraid. But my throat had a built-in trigger. A regulator. A fear fence. Like one of those invisible electric boundaries for dogs. The shock wasn’t pain—it was tightening. A reflexive clamping down that refused to let me squawk any higher than A-whatever.

And what a fucking perfect metaphor. The muscles in my vocal cords were trained—God only knows how many years ago—to tighten, resist, freeze at a certain note. Unless I happened not to notice. Unless my brain temporarily disconnected and my voice slipped past the guard. The exception that proves the rule. Tighten when ascending. Contract when expanding. Clamp down at altitude. Sound familiar?

Francesca was quick to point out how many excuses, rationalizations, and avoidant maneuvers I had used over the years to stay below that ceiling. Different song choices. Emphatic pleas that I would surely suffer some sort of catastrophic vocal stress. Casual shrugs. “That one’s not really in my range.” What?! I wasn’t listening… Geez Louise. Holy crap. Seriously, folks. I knew I was taking these lessons for a reason. I felt drawn—guided, even—to try again. Just one more time. No guitar. No piano. No muddying the water. Just breath and sound and the truth of what happens when I go higher.

And then it happened. For one brief, shining moment, I felt relaxation at the top note of the exercise. Space. Flow. I hit the note. Not force. Not strain. It felt odd—almost foreign—and yet somehow more me. More authentic. Does that make any sense at all? It felt great. Francesca caught it instantly and cheered and hooted and hollered (she’s very vocal and emotionally balanced… so punny). But what she was celebrating wasn’t volume. It was release.

The note didn’t change.
I did.
That invisible fence? It flickered.

And I walked out of that lesson inspired and slightly stunned, resolved to practice relaxing in any and all curious situations—conflict in conversations, uncomfortable positions of all sorts, unfamiliar quirky expressions, risky honesty, emotional altitude. To see if I can notice where I automatically tighten. (Paws to Wonder!) To see if the ceiling is real. To breathe instead of brace.

​To soften instead of squeeze.
Turns out the range was never the problem. The reflex was.
Over and out.

Canceling My Subscription to Victimhood™

Trust again? Really? That was my internal eye-roll yesterday. I was struck — again — by the layers. My layers of distrust, manipulation, fear, and fixing. Apparently I run a small but very efficient internal repair shop that never closes. I even had a tidy little excuse for still being “dis-eased.” A neat narrative explaining why the natural, relaxed, vibrant body hadn’t fully arrived yet. Very reasonable. Very compassionate. Very… committed to the storyline.

And then along comes Daily Reflections from Dr. David R. Hawkins — not because it was December 19, but because I did my favorite wink-wink “random” book opening and there it was, wisdom on demand. This is what stopped me cold:

 "The source of joy is always present, always available, and not dependent on circumstances. There are only two obstacles:
                             (1) the ignorance that it is always available and present; and
                             (2) valuing something other than peace and joy above peace and joy because of the secret                                       pleasure of the payoff."

Hello!? There it was. Not trauma. Not history. Not the body. Not circumstances. Two obstacles. Ignorance… and payoff. Oh. OH!

I’ve probably read that before. But in this moment it finally landed. It made sense of a recent meditation experience in a way that was both humbling and mildly annoying. Because if joy is always available, then the thing blocking it isn’t my past. It’s my loyalty to certain thought patterns. My subtle preference for control over surrender. My attachment to my story being linear with a tidy beginning — middle — and end.

Here’s the part that matters: I chose to step away from the OSHO BYOB meditation after doing it nearly every afternoon for a year. Not because it wasn’t working. But because sometimes devotion feels done and a new thing is appealing and curious. I wandered elsewhere for a bit — and then returned to the exact same meditation with fresh ears. Same voice. Same words. Different listener.

Field Guide Rule #23: Step away. Create space. Allow yourself and the practice to marinate. Return fresh, curious and a tad spicy.

The voice on the recording is still lovely — smooth, grounded, not a single hiss or blip. And this time I was more aware of a slight bristling, the words that hooked me are these: “You can return to the natural relaxed state.” “Balance is returning.” “It’s time now to allow a new beginning — allow the body to remember… to return to its state of being natural, relaxed and healthy.” That’s where the resistance lives. Remember and return.

Without consciously deciding to, I had built a belief that my body wasn’t capable of remembering balance. Because I experienced physical abuse so young, I quietly assumed that my body never truly lived in wisdom without fear. Therefore, no memory. Therefore, no returning. Therefore… permanent compromise. Assume. There’s that nasty little word again. Like expectation, it pretends to be logic while quietly setting the table for suffering.

But who appointed me the authority on my body’s capacity? That’s some impressive arrogance disguised as protection. I know the work is an inside job. I know that. And yet I was underestimating — again — the resilient intelligence of this body. The miracle I’m partnered with in this lifetime. Holy crap. Sorry, body. Truly.

Once I noticed this subtle resistance while in the meditation, something softened. I allowed for the possibility that my DMGS (Divine Magical Guidance System) has access to wisdom far beyond what my conscious memory can catalog. Who says balance has to be something I personally experienced in early childhood? What if it’s inherent? What if it’s cellular? What if it’s simply always available — as Hawkins suggests — and I’ve been valuing vigilance over peace?

That word hit hard: payoff. What is the payoff of believing I can’t fully return to balance? It’s subtle. If I’m still healing, I don’t have to fully trust. If I’m still “working on it,” I get to stay in control. If my body is permanently compromised, vigilance makes sense. There’s a strange comfort in that. A secret pleasure in being justified in my defensiveness. Ouch.

And then there’s the other delusion: that one day I’ll be done. Done peeling onions. Done climbing spiritual peaks. Done noticing distortions. As if enlightenment comes with a laminated badge and a retirement plan. Please. This is my practice: notice, shift, continue. OHR (Observe Honor Release). Lather. Rinse. Repeat. Notice. Choose joy. Repeat again.

Trust again? Yes. Not because nothing happened. Not because history evaporates. But because joy is present. Because peace is available. Because my body is not my enemy. Because “remember and return” might not mean going back to some untouched state — it might mean recognizing what has always been here. Maybe balance isn’t something my body failed to learn. Maybe it’s something I’ve been temporarily distracted from. And maybe the only real obstacle isn’t the past — it’s the habit of valuing protection and vigilance over trust.
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Trust again? Apparently. Again and again. With humility. With humor. With less drama and fewer heroic narratives. Just a quiet willingness to stop fearing, fixing and underestimating the light within — ​and to recognize that the only thing keeping me stuck was my quiet habit of renewing a secret subscription to victimhood that no longer served me.

Lately I’m sensing an oddly tense energy, it is simmering. Bubbling. Flowing grey—and I won’t lie, a bit disturbing. Not tied to anything that’s actually happening, which almost makes it worse. Just thoughts. Imagined possibilities. Hypotheticals with teeth. “Should I pick this or that? Do I go here or there? Now or later?” A strange vibration. A defiance of “right action” that hasn’t even clocked in yet. Something is off—conflicted, pushing back. An emotional gut reaction to choices not yet required. So weird, I know, tough to verbalize. There’s an undertow to it—resistance isn’t quite the right word, but it’s close-ish. Something reactive. Something old-feeling. A low negative hum I can’t ignore.

This hum feels familiar. I’ve known it before—long before I had words for it.

Historically, I rarely engaged in athletic competition—or any competition, frankly. I figured that meant I wasn’t competitive. Ha, ha! Joke’s on me—as usual. Silly woman. Just like I once emphatically declared that I truly did not care what other people think. And yet… here we are. Turns out I am competitive, and I do care what people think, no matter how much I’ve testified and proclaimed otherwise. The attachment may be weaker now, less sticky than it used to be, but the truth is still there—perhaps born and bred early in me as a childhood victim of domestic violence. No shame in that. That’s not pathology, that’s survival. What I’m noticing now is a subtler, deeper shade of it. A quieter frequency. Comparing, definitely.

Comparing, for me, feels like listening to a radio station that never quite shuts off. It’s always scanning. Click—something looks smarter. Click—someone more disciplined. Click—someone braver, louder, more confident, more spiritual, more talented, more together. Static. Snippets. Half-songs. DJ voices shouting rules I never agreed to. And the wild part? I’m not even enjoying the music. I’m just compulsively listening, hunting for proof that I’m either winning or losing at a game no one else seems to know we’re playing. Somewhere along the way, the critic’s channel convinced me there was a leaderboard. That there was a “best station.” That if I just put in the time and suffering, I’d get it right—that I’d finally land on the behaviors and accomplishments that meant I was okay. That would satisfy and fulfill me.

Stepping back for a moment, here’s the truth I can finally say without flinching: I don’t actually want to be the best in the world at anything. As a world-class competitor, I’m toast. There is no singular obsession in me that wants to train, grind, and sacrifice for gold. No ten-thousand-hour devotion calling my name. I’m a skimmer, a butterfly flower sampler. A scenic-route kind of soul. And for a long time, I judged the hell out of myself for that—like something essential was missing, like work only counted if it was better than anyone else’s ever. I absorbed the message that mastery was the point and dabbling was failure with better PR. Naming this has been a relief, not a resignation. It explains so much.

Back at the radio, I’m finally hearing what’s actually going on. Comparing isn’t a personality trait—it’s a station I’ve learned to tune into. The critic’s channel. Everything gets measured, ranked, evaluated. Who’s winning. Who’s losing. Who’s doing it right. It’s loud, bossy, and deeply committed to the idea that there is, in fact, a correct way to exist—and I am currently failing at it. The critic’s frequency is exhausting. It never stops broadcasting, and it’s weirdly confident for something that never seems satisfied.

Perhaps I now have the freedom to notice and choose a different station? Perhaps there is a completely different station called curiosity—the cheerleader’s channel. Same world. Same inputs. No scoreboard. No commentary track. When I’m tuned to curiosity, I’m not auditioning for approval or bracing for judgment—I’m just listening. Watching. Interested. Inquisitive, even. It’s quieter, wider, and refreshingly unconcerned with whether anything I’m witnessing should be optimized. Oh, and WAY more fun!

Curiosity turns out to be the station I actually appreciate—the frequency I’ve preferred all along, even when I forget I have a choice. It doesn’t demand loyalty or mastery or proof of worth. It invites me to notice what’s here, enjoy what resonates, and move on when it doesn’t. From this station, perspective opens up. Options appear. “Right” action stops sounding like a command and starts feeling obvious and natural. Not urgent. Not righteous. Just relaxed and clear. And when I listen from that frequency, my response changes naturally. Curiosity and cheerleading are the same signal. When curiosity is how I listen—the station I’m tuned to—cheerleading is how I may choose to respond. Same signal—one internal dialogue, one self-expression.

The breakthrough came slowly, like good radio does. Critics need clipboards and scorecards to announce winners and proclaim losers. They require a rigid sense of what “excellence” sounds like so they can rank and file you accordingly. Critics need standards first, then judgment, then analysis. Cheerleaders do not. Cheerleaders just watch. Listen. Witness. Cheerleaders aren’t scanning for flaws or ranking performances or defending their own airtime. They’re not stuck in the critic’s eddy, spinning and evaluating. They’re on the sidelines, clapping because authentic self-expression itself is the point.
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So today—just for today—I choose to switch stations. I choose to be a cheerleader instead of a critic. For myself. For everyone. For every strange, brave, messy signal broadcasting itself into the world. Not better than. Not less than. Just curious. Authentically delighted by the sheer variety of human sound. I’ll tune in when it resonates. I’ll change the station when it doesn’t. And I’ll stop pretending the comparing critic gets to decide who I should become and just allow the curious cheerleader to bound in and take over from the sidelines.

I can recall clearly a certain section of questions in a daily morning meditation that davidji offers on Insight Timer. I love the way the meditation starts, proceeds, and completes. It feels like a full-circle act of self-care—gentle, spacious, unrushed. At one point, he invites a series of questions, asked quietly and without pressure, as if curiosity itself were the practice: Who am I? What am I grateful for? Who am I grateful for? Do I agree that I cannot step into the past to change it? Do I agree that I cannot step into the future to force it? All good so far. No resistance. Gravity exists. Time moves one way. Fine.

Then comes, Do I have the patience to wait until my mud settles and my water is clear? There’s a brief pause while I decode the metaphor, but yes—mostly. I’ve done a lot of waiting. A lot of settling. A lot of letting things clarify in their own time. And then comes the question that stops me cold every single time: Do I give myself permission, right now, to show up as my best, most brilliant, most creative expression of myself? followed immediately by its companion, Am I willing to breathe deeply into this moment and awaken my best version?

No. And also—hell no! I can feel it before I think it. Goosebumps. A pit in my stomach. A subtle but unmistakable recoil. My body answers faster than my mind ever could, and it answers honestly. Which, I suppose, is the point of meditation—though I doubt this is the response he had in mind.

After that, the practice gently releases all questions and answers, inviting them to be handed over to the Universe, to Spirit, to whatever benevolent sorting system one believes in. Then comes the intention-setting: What does your heart truly long for right now? Let it crystallise. Let it nestle into the heart. Plant it like a seed. Bless it. Let it go. This is where things unravel for me, because here’s the thing I’m finally willing to admit: I don’t actually know what my heart’s desire is. Not in any clear, articulate, inspirational way. And I’m unnerved—not a little—that I’m sixty something and still don’t have a tidy answer.

What I do know is what I don’t want. I don’t want noise. I don’t want hustle. I don’t want performative visibility or expectations that require armor. I enjoy privacy. Quiet. Stickers. Plants. Cooking. Cleaning things until they gleam. Grocery shopping. I enjoy sharing one on one with like minded humans. Adventure to new places on the down low. I like small, contained pleasures. I like days that go unnoticed.

Is my heart’s desire hiding in there somewhere? Is my “best, most brilliant, most creative expression” supposed to look like… that, a list of stuff I like to do? If not, what do I actually want? The paradox is tempting: I want "everything and nothing." It’s a handy place to rest when clarity feels invasive. But if I’m being honest, it’s also a dodge—a way to avoid naming anything specific enough to scare me.

Because the fear here isn’t really about failing. It’s about being seen accurately. It’s about standing in the light without a script, a role, or a familiar disguise. It’s about being witnessed—not by critics or crowds first, but by myself. When I imagine who’s watching, it isn’t the internet or the marketplace or even future readers. It’s my own inner guidance system—my DMGS—steady and observant. It’s also my ancestors. And yes, somewhere out there on the periphery, the vast and overwhelming “world” looms, waving politely from the sidelines like, No rush, but we’re here.

I call myself a space creator. Self-ascribed, yes—but earned. I’ve created space mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually. I’ve cleared rooms, habits, stories, and expectations. I’ve made a life that feels breathable and kind. And I love it. And—and this part matters—it’s damn scary. Because once the space exists, the old questions creep back in wearing practical disguises: What’s the plan? The timeline? The priorities? Are the goals SMART enough? Am I good enough? Am I safe enough to put myself out there now?

This is where I’m tempted to accuse myself of being lazy or afraid—a creature barely brave enough to stick her whiskers out the window to feel the breeze. But that story doesn’t quite hold anymore. I trust my DMGS deeply, and yet I’m learning that trust and clarity don’t necessarily come with instructions. They don’t hand over a checklist or a five-year plan. They offer something subtler—and far more unsettling: presence without guarantees.

So I find myself breezing past those meditation questions again today, grateful that I don’t have to force an answer. Grateful that I can let them hover, unanswered but alive. Because I’m beginning to suspect that not knowing isn’t a flaw—it’s the terrain. In the meantime, I get to be this open, watching creature in the clearing of my life. Sometimes wandering the woods. Sometimes standing at the edge of a cliff, aware of the drop but also dimly aware—on good days—that I’m already wearing a wingsuit. Gear I didn’t design, can’t quite explain, but somehow trust—gear that allows for falling and for flight.

Maybe the courage isn’t in declaring a desire at all. Maybe it’s in staying present without hiding, in choosing authenticity over certainty, and in trusting that clarity arrives as lived experience, not instructions. I don’t need to know the destination to keep walking. I don't need a script to participate in my own life. For now, gentle is enough.

Gentle is my word for 2026. End of line.

Field Guide Rule 26:
Not knowing is the terrain. Clarity arrives without instructions—proceed anyway.