Fluidity, an original alcohol ink 5x7” Kanzaki Card, now available for purchase.
I’ve updated some items in my shop as I’m clearing out the old to make way for the new. Have a look, and if there’s a card or design you’d like to see, feel free to let me know. My favorite things to create are those for specific people or special occasions. Cheers to a new year of making and creating from the heart.
I hope this year you do less, but better.
I hope you stay curious and open-minded. Learn a new skill, try a vegetable you’ve never had, spark conversations with people outside your usual community. I hope you find you share more similarities than differences.
I hope you take that idea you’ve been thinking about for a long time and actually begin. Everyone is scared starting out. We learn as we go and as we grow.
I hope you ask deeper questions that cut past superficiality and require vulnerability. The most authentic connections start with asking better questions.
I hope you remember that we never fully ‘arrive’- rather we are always becoming, transforming, transcending into more actualized versions of ourselves.
Don’t be afraid to live the questions and swim in the exciting, adventurous waters of uncertainty. Life would be dull if we were forever anchored in the answers.
I hope you watch something grow- whether it’s a plant or a tiny human- and celebrate this miraculous thing we call life and how we all need sun, water, food, patience and tenderness to thrive.
I hope you are kind. To others, and most importantly, to yourself.
I hope this year you contribute something generous and special to this world in your own unique way. May your cup always overflow with blessings and love.
My ‘core desire’ intention for 2020 was GUTSY. In January of 2020, I envisioned it to mean stretching outside of my comfort zone athletically, professionally, and artistically. I chose this word because of its root word “GUT” which I associate with gut intuition. This year I wanted to be more aligned and in touch with my intuition. Quiet and still enough to hear it. Brave enough to follow it.
In February I registered for my first 30K trail race as well as a 4-day running retreat in Zion National Park. Flights were purchased. Accommodations reserved. This scared me enough into training consistently and questioning more frequently than I’d like to admit if I should cancel the registration entirely. But it allowed me to tap into feeling gutsy, so I persevered. Gutsy meant pursuing a scuba certification with a friend and making plans for regular surf sessions in Pacifica.
But just like everyone else, our world shifted. Along with our plans.
This year GUTSY looked different. It meant leaning into difficult conversations to protect the integrity and ethics of the workplace, only to discover I was tremendously supported and backed by my colleagues. Gutsy meant having enough faith and confidence in the caliber of my work to collaborate with media companies. Performing a new spoken word piece live for the first time in front of an audience with a musician never having practiced together prior to getting up on stage. Gutsy meant saying a hearty YES to corporate wellness opportunities and doing a global presentation on the gut microbiome. It meant composing new music and trusting and surrendering and watching it unfold magically before my eyes and ears. Gutsy meant inquiring into failed pitches with curiosity so I could harness their constructive criticism to improve and learn. Some of the most valuable feedback as a speaker were from these experiences. Gutsy meant riding solo along new bike routes, fixing mechanicals on the road, and learning to stay calm. Gutsy meant asking for help from neighbors and friends. Gutsy meant humbly accepting a medical diagnosis and admitting to my close friends and family that I was afraid and scared and suffering. Gutsy meant dancing with the fear that ‘it might not work’ and making new types of art, only to find out these projects were the most personal and meaningful things I created all year.
This year I discovered that I liked being home. I like the energy of my space, the way the light filters in and shifts throughout the day, the philodendron that flourishes next to my succulents and Pilea plant babies. How my meditation cushion sits near my yoga mat. The corner of my space with dumbbells and kettlebells and a balance board. The calm, quiet, peaceful solitude that encourages me to create and read books and make music. I learned how to propagate Monstera plants and dove deeper into herbalism and plant medicine. I created a morning ritual of Morning Pages, meditation, mobility, and movement. I call it my 4 M’s. I started soaking every evening in lavender epsom salt baths by the soft glow of candlelight and found I loved singing bowls and painted most freely to binaural beats. With the external world shut down, I was encouraged to turn inward. To get to know myself in a deeper, truer, more honest way. With the noise of the world stripped away, I could finally clearly recognize the sound of my own gut intuition. Being forced to stay home allowed me to come and return home. To myself. And right now, that feels like the perfect place to be.
Grounding practice in Huddart Park, Woodside.
“Unplug.
Ground down.
Bring your inquires to the trees.
Place your hands on their sturdy trunks.
Feel their energy pulse through you.
Connect to their ancient wisdom.
Mother Earth is always speaking.
Are you listening?”
“Your great mistake is to act the drama
as if you were alone. As if life
were a progressive and cunning crime
with no witness to the tiny hidden
transgressions. To feel abandoned is to deny
the intimacy of your surroundings. Surely,
even you, at times, have felt the grand array;
the swelling presence, and the chorus, crowding
out your solo voice. You must note
the way the soap dish enables you,
or the window latch grants you freedom.
Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity.
The stairs are your mentor of things
to come, the doors have always been there
to frighten you and invite you,
and the tiny speaker in the phone
is your dream-ladder to divinity.
Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into
the conversation. The kettle is singing
even as it pours you a drink, the cooking pots
have left their arrogant aloofness and
seen the good in you at last. All the birds
and creatures of the world are unutterably
themselves. Everything is waiting for you.”
I wrote these words in my notebook last week. What is for you will find you.
Up until 2018, I had no idea there was a board certification for health and wellness coaching. I just knew I was drawn to this field and I loved encouraging individuals and helping them reach their wellness goals. I had 11 years of nutrition knowledge and experience as a registered dietitian, and a deep motivation and passion to empower people in their own health journeys.
The wellness coaching coursework took two years to complete outside of my job. 6am classes on Monday morning. Homework. Lots of reading. Practice groups. I loved every minute of it. Books like The Art of Possibility and others on positive psychology that were already dog-eared on my nightstand were woven throughout the coursework. Topics on motivational interviewing, presence, active listening skills, positive emotions, design thinking. Each week I was learning new skills that added to my toolbox. I noticed how my values of creativity, curiosity and a growth-mindset were natural parts of this field.
I can’t say that I actively searched out coaching. It found me.
Today, after seven weeks, I received my exam results that I passed. I am officially a National Board Certified Health and Wellness Coach! I am beyond grateful that every morning I wake up and get to do work I love and enjoy, and see individuals thrive and become the best versions of themselves.
I needed the fast-paced acute care clinical nutrition setting to teach me the foundational knowledge of nutrition in disease conditions and how to thrive in a stressful work environment. I needed my retail sales experience to learn how to interface with customers. I needed my teaching experience to learn the soft skills of empathy, reading nonverbal cues and body language. I needed to be a student again to remind myself that we are never done learning and educating ourselves. I needed to work in an environment where I felt my work wasn’t valued to fully appreciate how it feels to do work that matters and makes people better. So keep going. Everything can be used for a bigger purpose, for the bigger picture.
And never give up.
Indeed, what is for you will find you.
An excerpt from a journal entry in 2016. Art created with alcohol ink and pen, made with Procreate.
I attended a winter solstice writing retreat in 2014 where I didn’t know a single person. Everyone was older. Scholars and teachers. People who wrote for a living. We stayed in cabins without electricity and no one wore makeup. It was if they already knew the secret- you can’t make your writing better by looking better. There was nothing to prove, no one to impress through appearance. It was all about the picture you could paint with your words and your ability to cut through the fluff to touch down into something real.
Afternoons were spent walking silently near the ocean or writing in the grassy fields. We sat on thick wooden chairs with velvet cushions around the fireplace in the evening and read our work aloud to each other. I was scared and shy and wrote about subjects that were safe. As a result, my writing was distant and dull. Writing from a deeper place seemed impossible at the time. I needed to pierce through my own pain with self-compassion and acceptance before any breakthroughs in my writing took place.
It took time, but words were the breadcrumbs that led me back home to myself. I journaled every morning, writing longhand. Page after page. Through this writing practice I found my voice. It took this retreat to teach me the effort that goes into safe writing. That space of self-protection actually takes work. The writing also suffers. One of my friend says, “It’s too much effort to pretend to be anyone other than myself.” I vowed after this retreat to write from a truthful, raw, vulnerable, and real place. It’s in those corners of the soul where the real magic lives, and where we can connect most intimately with others. When we write what we know, inevitably, we write what others know too.
“Always we hope
someone else has the answer,
some other place will be better,
some other time,
it will turn out.
This is it.
No one else has the answer,
no other place will be better,
and it has already turned out.
At the center of your being,
you have the answer:
you know who you are and
you know what you want.
There is no need to run outside
for better seeing,
nor to peer from a window.
Rather abide at the center of your being:
for the more you leave it,
the less you learn.
Search your heart and see
the way to do is to be.”
Choose a theme. Then make a list of anything associated with it. Write down your automatic associations. Then think outside the box. Look at it from a different angle. From a different historical time. Change the context.
Your list is proof that diverse iterations can grow from a single idea seed.
Your creative idea is the same. Loosely write automatic assumptions, first thoughts. Then let the seeds soak for a bit and write other ideas from different angles and contexts. What if you created for a different audience? Chose a different medium to represent your idea? Did the opposite of what is usually ‘on brand’ for you?
The direction you decide to go is completely up to you. In reality, you can go in many different creative directions. All that it requires is for you to continually show up to do the work, dance with the possibility that it might not work and push the boundaries of your own comfort zone.
If you’re willing to make something and put it out into the world because it hasn’t ever been done before and it may change someone for the better, then you know what I’m writing about. You’re reading this and nodding. You know the feeling of accomplishment and pride that comes with service and generosity and dancing with fear to bring an idea to life. This is where the true magic lies.
The good news is we don’t just get one seed to plant in a lifetime.
If we’re lucky and generous and hard-working, we can plant an entire garden.
Holiday cards just in! I had such a blast designing these. There’s nothing like rounding up the events of 2020 into one big word tree time capsule for the year that will go down in history. Let’s spread holiday cheer, not COVID.
Grab a limited edition card for yourself or send a few to your friends HERE.
Art brought to you by Bach and black peppercorns.
Travel restrictions and the lack of social gatherings have given me more time to do things I enjoyed but never actually carved out time for. Like playing the piano.
Quarantine has reunited me with my old piano pieces like Mendelssohn’s Rondo Capriccioso and lots and lots of Bach. When I play Bach on the piano, I’m fascinated how each hand independently holds its own. Unlike Mozart or Beethoven where the left hand is the accompaniment and the right hand is the melody, the polyphonic nature of Bach enables it to simultaneously weave two melodies together. Each can stand on its own. But intertwining the right and left hand together synergistically creates a more complex and intricate piece.
Relationships are like that too. The best kinds of relationships are those that respect each person’s own power and greatness, but TOGETHER they are a magical force to be reckoned with. We each have a unique melody to share with the world, and yet there are some melodies that interlock with ours that enable us to create something far more beautiful together in the world. It’s synergy at its finest.
Black pepper and turmeric are a powerful pair. Turmeric contains the compound curcumin, and black pepper contains the compound piperine. Studies have shown that piperine enhances curcumin absorptions in the by body by up to 2,000%. Together when combined, they are a powerful anti-inflammatory team that fights infection and improves digestion.
If you’re looking to include these into your diet, here is an easy recipe:
GINGER TURMERIC GOLDEN MILK:
1 cup of plant milk plus 1 teaspoon coconut oil. (The small amount of fat helps with nutrient absorption.)
1/2 teaspoon of ground turmeric
big pinch of freshly ground black pepper
1 small (1/4 inch) piece of ginger root peeled and grated (more or less to taste)
1 big pinch or sprinkle of ground cardamom
1 big pinch or sprinkle of ground cinnamon
Honey, maple syrup, or monkfruit extract to sweeten (optional)
Directions:
Blend or whisk all the ingredients together and warm on the stove over medium heat. Simmer (do not boil) for 15 minutes. Enjoy!
