These past few weeks have left me in an emotional haze, like a Winter fog has eclipsed my mind while my body meets a stalemate, marinating in the quicksand. Thoughts seems to swirl in a thousand separate, cascading ways before reaching any remotely reasonable destination. It’s not you, it’s not life – it’s me; tt’s me and my idiosyncratic thoughts merging with my wayward anxieties.  This year has brought about a lot of change: all of it necessary, most of it good but on the whole I realized there’s a lot that I’m still processing.

There are connections that have disintegrated, but then there are friendships that have been borne of that same radioactive relationship rubble. Job dissatisfaction isn’t uncommon, but then again balancing two careers on equal but opposite ends of the entertainment industry is. Life goes full circle, yes, but what no one relays is those circles are concentric. Like rungs around a tree, the golden ratio and the Fibonacci sequence –  life builds, blossoms and builds again.  I’ve found that a basic level of routine is inspiring, and nature is indisputably nurture. With the change in seasons, I’ve found myself waking up earlier and roused to leave the comfort of my home.

There’s something about witnessing the sunshine ebbing and flowing between clouds as scattered rain cleans the air and the feeling of freshly fallen leaves crisply crunching beneath my weathered sandals that grounds me back within the moment.  No anxiety around the unforeseen future, no fear of the fleeting past – just a grasp on the breadth and depth of each moment.  I find comfort within the confines of creativity, both wrapping my world in wordplay and taking pictures of the nuanced wonder that I’ve discovered lately.

Even though I’ve lived in Eagle Rock for a year and a half, this was the first time I’d actually noticed this little sign right off of the 210 – and we finally found a hike that takes us up to the actual Eagle Rock! (But, more on that later)

In the past year, I’ve seen a drastic shift from traditional lawns to Desert landscaping that takes our current drought into consideration. This is one of my favorite lawns, and somehow the sun always seems to halo on me.

Just call me the cat whisperer, and this one was a beauty!

      Something to leave you with, because I just finished reading through ‘You Are Here‘ by Tinch Nhat Hanh and this part has truly stuck with me for the past week. If you’re looking for a good, quick read – I highly suggest it!

“When you look at the surface of the ocean, you can see waves coming up and going down. You can describe these waves in terms of high or low, big or small, more vigorous, more beautiful or less beautiful. You can describe a wave in terms of beginning and end, birth and death. That can be compared to the historical dimension. In the historical dimension, we are concerned with birth and death, more powerful, less powerful, more beautiful, less beautiful, beginning and end and so on.

Looking deeply, we can also see that the waves are at the same time water. A wave may like to seek its own true nature. The wave might suffer from fear, from complexes. A wave may say, “I am not as big as the other waves,” “I am oppressed,” “I am not as beautiful as the other waves,” “I have been born and I have to die.” The wave may suffer from these things, these ideas. But if the wave bends down and touches her true nature she will realize that she is water. Then her fear and complexes will disappear.

Water is free from the birth and death of a wave. Water is free from high and low, more beautiful and less beautiful. You can talk in terms of more beautiful and less beautiful, high or low, only in terms of waves. As far as water is concerned, all these concepts are invalid.

Our true nature is the nature of no birth and no death. We do not have to go anywhere in order to touch our true nature. The wave does not have to look for water because she is water. We do not have to look for God, we do not have to look for our ultimate dimension or nirvana, because we are nirvana, we are God.

You are what you area looking for. You are already what you want to become.