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A couple years back, this blog had a post update every day. That streak was maintained I believe until I moved to Alaska, and then the time zone difference broke the streak. 

So what, right?

However, for 2023, I’m making an effort to post each day. Short, long, deep, or shallow. My goal is to have one new listing each day. 

I suppose you could say it’s one of my resolutions.

I suppose it’s that time again. A time to reflect on everything that happened over this past year. Tally up the wins and losses, and pledge to tackle all those goals and aspirations heading into 2023. 

I have no resolutions, and don’t believe that I have had any for a while. A few years back I started focus words. Things like distance or serenity. It was a suggestion from a podcast I was listening to.

I’m not sure I had guiding words at all for this year. At least, none that I remember.

I didn’t read nearly as much as I would have liked. Had a few projects that took up most of my year – tv shows and commercials, mostly. 

A lot of flying. Back and forth to Florida, Georgia, and Hawaii. Even ended the year on a cruise ship, which is something I haven’t been on since before the pandemic. 

I think I’ve been struggling to create as much as I would like. Working on others’ creative projects, it can be easy to put your own aside. 
So, if I had a resolution for 2023, it would be to create my own work. Artistic output. In a single guiding word, CREATE.

There’s something mythically inspiring about the holiday season. It generally fosters a sense of togetherness, from the Christmas movies to the stores’ displays to parties and snow and pastoral scenes. It moves me each and every year.

Some may argue that it has become a season of overindulgence and consumerism, and, you know, that’s hard to argue with. Every email I get is an appeal to buy something or other during the seasonal sales.

Still, it feels as if we grow a little bit closer to each other as well. Just a bit. And that’s ultimately what the season is about anyway. Coming together.

For much of my life, I’ve been a singer, and my favorite season for singing has always been Christmas. Even when I was very young, second or third grade, I remember checking out a book of Christmas carols from the school library. I think it was probably March or April. Like much of the US, I associate the music most closely with Christmas, maybe more than anything else.

A handful of years ago, I was at a Christmas concert, and the director spoke of keeping the spirit of the season in your hearts all year round. That giving and caring shouldn’t be relegated to just a few short weeks at the end of each year. It was beautiful.

I mention this because I think it’s easy to forget just how important this season is. Not just for the religious or commercial aspects of it. But it gives us an opportunity to prove our humanity. It lets us go out into the world (which, over the past couple of years was incredibly challenging), and be a neighbor, if not a friend. 

That we all are, every one of us, more connected by our alikeness than we are separated by our differences. 

Merry Christmas.

While I guess this applies to the globe itself, if you loosen your definition of the term circle. I’m using this metaphorically. In that, all things have a way of coming back around, and everything is interconnected more than we realize.

In a recent reading, Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within by Natalie Goldberg, I’d forgotten how heavily the author drew on Buddhist principles and practices in her instruction.

One specific passage stuck out: “My friend who is a Buddhist said once after coming out of a meditation retreat, ‘The colors were so much more vibrant afterward.” Her meditation teacher said, “When you are present, the world is truly alive.’”

Be present, and seek out the vibrancy of the everyday.

Well, last week was Thanksgiving, and many of us probably shared some things that we’re thankful for in our lives. And if you’re not doing this, at least in part, every day, I’d like to suggest that you should be.

Gratitude is a powerful tool for motivation, mental health, and affirmative reinforcement. On and off I’ve tried to list three things daily, and while I am far from consistent, I do notice the difference when I wake up thinking gratefully vs. when I don’t.

I’ve been a vegetarian for six years now, and this Rockwell painting always makes me laugh.

Happy Thanksgiving!

To think that the light we see from the stars is ages old by the time that it reaches us – that some of the stars we see in the night sky are no longer burning.

Time is an odd thing. Odd in that it seems to do it’s own thing, regardless of how we feel about it. Suddenly, the end of the year is here. It feels like yesterday that I came to LA, and yet I’m about to celebrate my second holiday season here.

It’ll likely look different than last year, in a lot of ways. But, it looks significantly different than it did the year prior. 

I’m also on my last days here in Kona, and will soon be making my travels back to the mainland. 

So, time, can either slow down or speed up, and we try to keep on moving. Keeping up, or falling behind. But the best we can do is enjoy the moments we have.

In the ever-increasing rush of modernity, it becomes important to set aside time that you can just do things for yourself. For me, that’s typically the mornings. 

My morning routine as it stands now is to wake up, have my coffee, write for thirty minutes, and meditate. Sometimes it’s not that simple, but I do try and fit that in. 

Back on the mainland, it’s a workout almost first thing, usually an hour or hour and a half at the gym.

This is both important to build focus for the day, and to start off with a sense of accomplishment.