Living the Aspirations of Which Self?

How are the ways you currently understand yourself intimately linked with your past understanding of your self? When does the past no longer serve us? When do our aspirations of our self look like who we thought we were “supposed” to be versus who is really showing up? And if we don’t draw from the past, where do we draw from for our personal aspirations?

Inspiration © Steph Cowling

I have been thinking about this a lot lately. As I look at my changing body in the mirror, as I look at my shifting priorities and how my time is spent, I find myself comparing to a long past self.  As I consider my priorities: shifting from exploration and personal development to crafting partnership and creating healthy balance, I wonder how to integrate what was important before with what is important now.  Do I draw from a former self to craft my new identity? For example, do I recall old health practices that used to work, old dreams and goals that I wanted to reach, or past benchmarks that I wanted to meet? Or do I seek a future self to pull wisdom from, etch new rituals with, create new routines around and craft more relevant benchmarks for now.  Perhaps, it is a little bit of both.

Light © Steph Cowling

I believe as we all change, we are constantly  creating new practices and new understandings of ourselves, while also comparing to what used to be.  Does this sound true for you? Perhaps not, perhaps you have a way of drawing from only the present and future, without pulling in the past. I wonder, as what self do we aspire to live and love and how do our actions reflect that aspiration? In reading a recent article sent by my friend, “30 things to have and do before 30,” I wondered how these measures applied to my self who seeks six months of savings; healthy symphonic relationship to work, play and pleasure; mentorship from older women whom I trust and guidance on serving the folks and causes I am here to serve. I realize the self I used to be, while she still resides within me, is not wholly the self I am becoming. 

Life Bursting Forth © Steph Cowling

I’m wondering, have you had this experience? An identify of your self that you have loved and held onto that sounds so good and yummy, but just doesn’t fit anymore? And if so, then now, what does fit?  What new maps and blueprints are you creating for yourself? How do you let go of and honor what was and how do you become the new self that is bursting forth?

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Steph Cowling is an artist residing in New York City.  While she spends much of her time earning an income as a non-profit program coordinator, you can find her snapping away a photograph, jotting down notes in her journal, dancing towards her office or singing along to her latest favorite song.  She lives with her partner and tabby in Brooklyn.

On Bliss and Blues

On Bliss and Blues
By Steph Cowling 

I see life as a balance of bliss and blues. I tend to savor the blissful states, and yet they never last.  I tend to cringe at the blues, but they like the bliss, never last either.  I am learning how to be with both states and mine them for the gold that they offer to my life.   Bliss-full moment example: I am walking through the park, bundled up on a crisp yet sunny day.  I see the buds and the blossoms of spring on the trees.  Life is changing, we are moving into the next season.  I feel hopeful, open, expansive.  The day is unfolding for me.  Blues-full moment example: I am standing on the train, I feel disconnected, separate from the others who surround me.  The train is crowded, we are packed tight – bodies pushed up against each other, gingerly gripping bags, casting eyes down or away or through each other, and at this moment I just want to escape.  I can’t.   I need to get to the office.  I feel angry, isolated, burdened.  Sorrowful.  A small tear forms in the corner of my eye.

Is the true challenge in accepting the blues or bliss experience that we long to be somewhere else than we are?  How do you allow yourself to “be” where you are?  What bliss-full and blues-full moments have come forth for you lately?  How did you honor each?  What works for you?  How do you live with the fact that neither stays forever?  How do you live in between?

I do my best to notice the bliss: take the picture of the sun shining through the trees, share aloud the beauty of the baby’s smile, nod in quiet acknowledgement at the sweetness of the elder across the way.  I work on sharing the bliss with the people I love.  I pass on the pictures to them.  I recount the stories.  I make effort to appreciate what’s good.  And, I work on nurturing my blues.  I listen to the negative thoughts coming through. I feel where it is heavy in my body. I ask myself what do I most need right now. I promise to take some time to listen. I ask for help from others.  I work on shifting the thinking that says I have to figure it all out myself, I realize I am much stronger with the help of others. 

What has helped you to be with bliss and the blues?  Do you find yourself in one state more often than another?  As I wrap up this piece, I’m listening to “It Never Entered my Mind” radio on Pandora, sipping my herbal tea and smelling the sweetness of tru melange’s reflection candle.  I’m consciously seeking to accepting the duality.  It’s a work in process.

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Steph Cowling is an artist residing in New York City.  While she spends much of her time earning a paycheck as a non profit program coordinator, you can find her snapping away a photograph, jotting down visions in her journal, dancing towards her office or singing along to her latest favorite song.  She lives with her partner and kitty in Brooklyn.

The Beauty of Being Stuck

I have been contemplating the beauty of being stuck. Yes…the BEAUTY of being stuck. Going through job challenges and feeling overwhelmed with my daily grind, I found myself curled up in a ball asking “Why is all of this happening to me right now?”  Victimhood.  Ah, familiar friend! My victim likes to speak to me on how I’m stuck, how there is nothing I can do to be unstuck, how awful life is and how it will certainly be awful forever.  Enter the crippling fear of not being enough, not having enough time, having too much to do, and wanting to just get away: overwhelm, uncertainty and insecurity.  Do you have a friend like her?

Despite my victim’s doubts of moving out of the stuck-ness, I continued my daily practices: writing my morning pages, meditating for ten minutes, writing my five things I felt gratitude for, and questioning the assumptions in my frustrations. As I moved through my practices, I still found myself sad, feeling as if nothing would ever change, that even the little bit that I was doing was too little to actually make a difference.  Can you relate?

Although I struggled, I now realize this was part of a process. My stuck state provided me with an opportunity to see that something wasn’t working and pushed me to feel the intricacies of what I was needing. My victim gave me permission to sulk, cry, sob, and complain, which assisted me in identifying a need for a change. I had forgotten that so much goodness has come from my stuck-ness in the past, that my next transformation comes after the daily practices illuminate what’s true. I had forgotten the patience that is required to move through the stuck. It is easy to forget. How do you remember?

Us soul seekers go through the Light and the Dark, don’t we?  We don the caps of women who have gone to the edges of ourselves and dared to push a little more on that edge. Oh the agony, and the ecstasy of pushing on our edges.  The beauty of being stuck for me means that with all of my feelings of constraint, I know there has to be an opening.  Something has got to give, and I get this through my practices.  I work towards opening to the wisdom inside of me, to be with my swamp of stuckness, smelly and funky as it is, because I HAVE to be there.  I am out of the swamp for now. I find myself feeling lighter, freer and clearer.  I am seeing a way now.  And I’m once again reminded that often we have to wade in the swamp for some time before we know what type of galoshes we need, how to clear the water and especially, what treasures lie within.

Steph Cowling is an artist living in New York City.  While she earns most of her income through program coordinating at a non-profit, she logs in her artistic miles through her daily writing, meditation and muse-ing practices.  You can usually find her riding the 6 train, reading a Julia Cameron book, capturing quick photos on a sunny walk, or busily reading her latest spiritual find.  She lives with her partner and tabby cat.

Growing Your Garden

Growing Your Garden
 by Steph Cowling

Here we are at the start of 2012 – Are you ready? Specifically, are you ready to grow the garden of your life? By garden of your life, I mean your daily landscape consisting of what feeds and inspires you. This could be the poetry, dance, book reading, song singing, painting, women gathering, walk taking, hike breaking, picnic creating, photograph taking, pie baking, prayer making impulses within you. You may have a few or some or all or none of these aspects to your garden. What is important is that you are consciously growing what your garden needs for you to feel fed, nurtured and fulfilled. What fruits and nutrients does the garden of your life currently offer you? Where do you need to spend some more time tending? Where do you need to relax and let it grow?

If you are anything like me, you spent a lot of 2011 nurturing the seeds of work for someone else. Perhaps you have seen fruitful results, and even feel grateful. Perhaps, you too, have spent moments basking in the sun, where you have seen the seeds of your efforts sprout up through the soil. Perhaps it has looked like a colleague thanking you, having an amazing turnout at an event you planned, or hearing from a client that s/he utilized a tool you offered. Yes. Little sprouts of our watering, our positive thinking, releasing our doubts that it will grow and our continuous efforts to shine light on the seeds coming through have paid off. And yet, deep down, perhaps, like me, you have been working for someone else’s vision that is not quite your own. If this feels true for you, let’s make 2012 about growing the garden of our own vision.

For 2012, the roses of my priestess work, the daisies of my dancing, the sunflowers of my yoga practice, the irises of my women gathering and the greens of my Steph solo days are requesting more light, more love, more trust, and more of my time and attention. It is my intention that the light, water, nutrients, honeybees and butterflies that have been gracing the flowering of my day job are going to be spread to these other areas of my garden. I know that for my own peace of mind, and to consciously move towards work that is fueled by my own vision, I need to have this full, diverse and vibrant garden. I know too that I need to tend to the garden of my own physical and emotional self: Sleep, Morning Meditation, Positive Self Talk, Journaling, Prayer. All of these pieces are necessary for me to both trust that my seeds will sprout, and to feel inspired to nurture their blossoming.

What does the garden of your life look like now? What seedlings and flowerings have been neglected and now need some attention? Which need a bit of water? Light? Fresh air? A singing to? What is new that you are growing for this year? What seeds have you planted that you now are seeing sprout? Which do you need to let sit and stop digging up to see what’s happening? What may need to die to allow room for something new to grow?

As for me, I’m looking forward to seeing flowers everywhere.

Steph Cowling spends her creative time writing, dancing and capturing favorite moments through photograph. She lives with her partner and kitty in New York City.

Bucket Lists and Practicality

Bucket Lists and Practicality
 by Steph Cowling

I love bucket lists, lists detailing those experiences you want to have before you “kick the bucket.” I love dreaming of what will be on my eulogy, imagining the legacy of my life.  Imagination and idea creation are my specialty.  Now, that being said, I can also stand to use a bit more grounded practice along with my imagination.  As I write this, I’m staring at a 150 item long bucket list, with only a few items crossed off that list.  Not to diminish myself, in our Cosmic Cowgirl November SPARK! practice, one of our featured cowgirls offered a practice of “ta-done” where we recognize what we have accomplished rather than focus only on what we still need to get done.  I appreciate this.  It gives my over active critic, Evan (my name for the internal critic voice), a bit of a break.  However, as December slowly creeps its way into our lives, I want to start 2012 working on reaching the desired experiences on my list.  With the bucket right on my computer screen, I wonder how can I bring these dreams into my life now?

"Before I die, I want to..."

Let me share with you a bit of my bucket list. I have included: run in the NYC marathon; become fluent in Portuguese and Spanish; take a belly dance class; do a body mapping session with Laura Hollick; complete my masters in Women Spirituality; craft a curriculum for young women on living one’s authenticity; attend a training with Hedy and Yumi; create a play about NYC subway passengers’ interweaving lives; establish a women’s retreat center; go on retreat with Julia Cameron; take culinary classes; go scuba diving, skiing, snorkeling and base jumping; go the Sundance Film Festival; lead women’s re-birthing ceremonies; make a quilt; officiate grief rituals; experience Cosmic Cowgirl’s Legendary Life Program; study soul contracts with Caroline Myss; learn tango in Argentina; travel to Cambodia, Costa Rica, Greece, India, Rome, Spain, Japan, Peru, Nepal; wear a long red gown to an opera; write a play about wild women and visit my grandparents’ hometowns.  And, as I said, this is not the entirety of my list.

Subway Billboard Recognizing All NYC Marathoners

What does practicality have to do with this?  While I love to vision and imagine, I also know I have to plan.  I want to save money, even if it’s five dollars that goes into an envelope in my closet.  I choose to save money because I want to show up to my dreams in a real way.  And, I know for 2012, I want to take steps towards what I want to do rather than just talk about it.

So, what is on your bucket list?  What do you want to experience, complete, offer, enjoy?  What is the next step that you could take to move towards reaching those dreams?  For me, right now, it’s setting aside some of my financial resources, and giving myself the permission to speak a few of my bucket items out loud.  What small step can you take? Is it five dollars in a bucket list envelope?  Is it sharing your list with someone you trust?  Whatever it is, here’s to your very next step toward making your someday dreams a present day reality.

with love,

Steph

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Steph Cowling spends her time writing, dancing, thinking, listening and dreaming.  She seeks every day to listen to her inner yearnings and bring those bucket dreams into her reality.  She lives, works and plays in New York City.

Grounding in Heart, Body and Soul

For this month’s Soul in the City, I interviewed a glowing intuitive coach and fellow Cosmic Cowgirl, Jennifer Alhasa.  We discussed how she nurtures her soul in the city and what wisdom she has to offer all of us on our journey towards self love and self care.  Below are excerpts from my interview with Ms. Alhasa.  Enjoy!  

Get Grounded

Steph: Jennifer, how do you nurture your Soul in the City?

Jennifer: Get grounded: meditate, hug a tree, eat a banana.   Whatever it is for you to hunker down into the earth and into your soul, do that daily. Just this morning, I had this epiphany.  I am used to waking up and grabbing the laptop because I’m so excited about my work in the world.  But, I realized this was backwards.  Now, I have started from 7am to 8am to spend an hour where I meditate, I sit on the ground, I put on some spiritual music and dance, and get in my body. I start my day and end my day with this.  It could be just twenty minutes to bookend the day.  No technology, just solitude.  I also take sea salt baths as an amazing way, at the end of the day, to wash off the world, and clear my energy.  In this city, you take on so much energy that is not yours, just from being a psychic sponge in the world.  I say, get grounded, get in your body, use tools that cleanse or reenergize you.  Ask to release everything that is not yours and everything that does not serve your highest good. I also burn sage or palo santo wood.  I smudge myself and then I do my house.  It changes everything.

Swim in Synchronicities

Jennifer: I believe the other thing is to really focus on being present.  So often we can get ahead of ourselves, think about what is coming next. I realized that when I was younger and traveling in Europe, I never saw the sites because I was not in my body, I was not present. I was so on to the next that I didn’t even see these countries.  I went back to visit Germany a few years ago, and I thought: I’m seeing Europe for the first time.  I believe if you are present and in your body, you will notice things.  You will start to swim in synchronicities: you notice the signs, the people, and you get the messages from the universe.  In New York, you can have massive events going on every day; on the train, on your journey, choices like what subway car you get on and what delays you have, can change your entire day, in a way that doesn’t happen in other places.  Here it is really important to say “Yes!” to whatever comes and go with it.

Life in the GLOW

Listen to Your Heart

Jennifer: I think that the last thing I would say is listen to your heart.  If you have a plan, if you have something that you thought you were supposed to do, but you’re just not feeling it, ask yourself throughout the day: do I really want to do this?  As I get more into my body, I use my body as a pendulum now.  I ask that every decision comes about for my highest good.  I give myself permission to change. Maybe I said I was going to go there, and I get to the door and I say, I’m not feeling it, so I change plans.  I believe you have the divine right to change your mind in any moment.  And the permission to do that is so freeing. I think it’s really claiming that right to say, I’m not feeling it and I’m going to do this instead. To say, I’m going to follow my bliss, follow my heart and speak my truth with compassion and love and really be honest with where I am. I think the kindest thing we can do is be completely honest.  Share what we are feeling, share what we are doing, share what our process is and give people the authentic us. I think the more we model listening to our intuition, following our heart and walk our talk, the more we encourage other people to do it.  In being true to you, more than you ever have before, you will watch the world change.

Connecting with Spirit

 Jennifer Alhasa is a global consciousness leader. As an  Intuitive Coach, Radio Host and Advice Columnist, she helps others awaken their spirit, claim their magnificence and Get GLOWING! She works in-person and online with individuals and groups, teaching tools and techniques for personal transformation. As an empathic Intuitive, she can see what’s standing in someone’s way and empower them to move through it to their highest good. Her mission is simple: To awaken others to their magnificence and evolve our Earth. The choice is ours. The time is NOW!  If you want to get glowing, connect with Jennifer at JenniferAlhasa.com.

 Steph Cowling is a visionary guide, dancer and dream  weaver.  She loves telling and hearing stories as well as  crafting and  participating in ritual.  Steph believes we can all  be living  legends.  Her work is waking up to her own inner  and outer  authentic beauty and helping others do the same.  She  currently lives, works and plays in NYC.

Inspiration Is Everywhere

What inspires you? What images, places, smells, people light you up?  What, when you take one more look at it, is simply magic? I’m playing with an idea that inspiration just might be everywhere.  And, that if we seek to see and feel the inspiration, more of it shows up.  Have you found this to be true for you?  One of my favorite hobbies is taking photographs.  I love when a scene strikes me: a flower calling out to me to be photographed or a piece of street art coupled with barbed wire and a flower intertwined.  There is something so special in capturing a moment, forever.  Lately, I take my camera with me in my bag to work.  It sits in there, wrapped up in its case, hidden at the bottom of a too full work bag. I find myself stepping into Artist, when on my walk home to the downtown 6 train, I see the words “love” written on the wall of the subway grit.

Love in Unexpected Places

I am reminded in moments where I step out of my day-to-day commute, and appreciate the work of others who seek to see something magical or beautiful in the mundane.  I find myself thinking, who are these people who place these words, signs, pictures on obscure places?  Artists, no doubt.  Rebels, perhaps.  But, mostly individuals who know there is so much more available just underneath the surface of making ends meet; there is art and beauty and creativity to be expressed.  There are those who know there is something holding all of us together, Spirit, the Universe, God, Goddess, and that if we seek inspiration, we will find it.  Or better yet, we will be the ones to create it.

Magic is Everywhere

Every day, I walk similar routes to East Harlem from Bed-Stuy. I pass by the same buildings. I see, occasionally, familiar faces.  This is New York City, home to over 8 million people, of course.  And yet, every morning, the light hits slightly differently on the faces of the people.  The smells coming off the construction sites or from the bakeries, slightly unique to the day before.  My preferred coffee beverage, a latte from Soho’s La Colombe, gives me a slightly special buzz, each day I choose to treat myself.  And the love that I feel for the city and for my life here, expands and contracts.  But, if I can remember, and some days I’m really good at this, to seek the inspiration that lies everywhere, my day can be a bit brighter.

Request to My Sweetie

So, what inspiration has been striking you?  Where can you see the mundane as sacred in your daily routine? What are the artists and rebels and visionaries and wild people of your community offering you on this day?  I think when we all choose to notice just a little bit more, we are that much more available for the inspiration to move through us and, quite possibly, for us to offer a little bit to someone else.

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 Steph Cowling is a visionary guide, dancer and dream weaver.  She loves telling and  hearing stories as well as crafting and participating in ritual.  Steph believes we all  can be living legends.  Her work is waking up to her own authentic inner and outer  beauty and helping others do the same.  She  currently lives, works and plays in  New York City.

Living the Questions

What do you do when nothing seems to be working out the way you expected? Where do you seek refuge when there is no place that feels comfortable?  What do you say when it seems that only disappointment and fear are coming through? I find myself grappling with these questions today. As we come to the conclusion of summer and head into fall, I am reflecting on the seeds I have planted this summer and those I expect to harvest.  I am thinking of where I thought I would be, where I actually am, and floating in the space between.

In truth, after one year in NYC, I expected to have found my groove.  But alas, upon returning to NYC from the Bay Area this past weekend, I found myself staring at our blank apartment wall, cuddling myself on our bed, wishing to be back with the people and the places that I love. Funk had struck me. I truly miss my people and places.  I miss walking around my old Rockridge neighborhood in Oakland, with all of its beautiful trees, cafes, and relaxed energies.  I miss sitting outside with a latte at Espresso Roma Cafe on Hopkins, and enjoying Ici’s rose pistachio ice cream cones on my walk home from work. I miss heading over to my folks’ place for dinner with my sisters on a Sunday evening. Mostly, I miss my carefully crafted, comfortable life.  

And yet, I believe that making the move was the right decision. Although, I definitely have been wondering about the disappointment and uncertainty that I feel.  I think of the Rilke quote, “I beg you…to have patience with everything unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves…Do not now search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now.  Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer…”  Right now, the questions I am living sound like this: Where can I find the sense of home that I am so desperately looking for?  What can I do to prepare for this next season in my life?  Where do I seek my joy?  Will this city, in this new year, bring the joy I long for?  

So, what are your questions?  What questions are you living?  What has been totally unexpected for you?  What new journey have you begun?  Or just finished?  What remains unsolved in your heart?  If you are seeking that which has not yet been found, I send you infinite courage, deep unconditional love and the brightest of light as you continue in search of your answers.

with love,

Steph

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Steph Cowling is a visionary guide, dancer and dream weaver.  She loves hearing and telling soul-filled stories. She believes it is in the telling of our everyday stories that we craft our  legendary lives. Steph’s work is waking up to her own authentic self and work in the world, while  guiding others to do the same.

Risk to Get to Happy

What does happiness mean for you?  Do you seek it in your life?   Or is it a state of mind, a way of being for you?  How does happy show up on your journey? Has the expression and experience of happiness in your life changed over time? Are there any markers that have stayed consistent for you in what you would define as happy? Are there any steps that you take that you know help you to feel happiness?

I have been thinking about what it takes to “get to happy” in my life. Up to now, it has looked like taking a lot of risks:  risk to put myself out there in the job market to find work; risk to move to a new place with no friends and a relatively young relationship of two and a half years; risk to be vulnerable in building new friendships.  It seems that to receive what I want, I have to risk to actually put into motion the manifestation of those dreams.

New York City Skyline

Truthfully, these risks have often come with beautiful and unexpected rewards.  I now work in a place that pays me the salary I need to take on a new risk of receiving coaching from an awesome dancing chef named Jeanine Abraham (http://www.melangeinternationale.com/).  I recently risked offering teens a volunteer presentation on crafting a five-year plan.  In doing so, I found how much I love the work of breaking down steps towards a vision, and had one of the best presentations of my life.  This past Saturday, I risked being vulnerable with new friends and chose to spend the day with them.  I had an incredible day hiking through the beautiful Catskill Mountains and picking berries at a local small town farm in upstate NY. And, I risk being soft and slow in a city that seems to praise hard and fast, yet gratefully have received feedback from new friends that being with me is comforting and calming.

Hand Picked Blueberries

On my journey of getting to happy, it seems that taking risks is the  central part of it.  It seems that in identifying what I want: meaningful work, friendship, mentorship, time in natural beauty,  softness, love – inevitably also has meant taking a risk to get there.  When I really think of my life in this way – that everything starts with a risk and so many things that used to be terrifying, simply no longer are – then risking becomes a vital part of living a joy-filled life. It seems that the willingness to risk is central to getting to happy.  And, in this willingness to risk for our big life visions, we actually express more of who we are and who we are meant to be.

What role does risk play in your life?  Does risk inevitably help you reach happy – however you define happiness?  What are you risking in your life?  What risk could you take now to move you closer to happy?  What rewards have you received in taking risks in the past?  What vision of your life would you say is worth risking for?

With so much love and light,

Steph

Tree lined trail in the Catskills

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Steph Cowling is a visionary guide, dancer and dream weaver.  She loves hearing and telling soul-filled stories. She believes it is in the telling of our everyday stories that we craft our  legendary lives. Steph’s work is waking up to her own authentic self and work in the world, while  guiding others to do the same.

The Journey

Writer Steph Cowling

This column is about the balance between looking back, looking forward and looking within.  I intend to offer musings on my personal journey towards visioning my dream life, actualizing my dream life through daily actions and seeing that my current life is a dream.  This is a little bit of what is coming forth for a me, a woman in her late twenties, seeking clarity and passion, joy and meaning.  Welcome to my piece, “Soul in the City.”

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Lately, I have been thinking about the balance between planning my life, reflecting on my life and actually living my life.  This is tricky balance: it often means that I need to fulfill my desire to look back over my old pictures, reminisce about my past while also living the present.  It means relaxing with my partner and daydreaming about what our lives will be like when we leave New York in five or so years, even though we just arrived here last August.  It means identifying the relationships that I want to continue to invest in and actually taking conscious steps towards investing in those.  I have taken to scheduling times to talk with my girlfriends; setting up phone dates where we agree to talk on the same day and at the same time.  I have begun reading books now like “Getting Things Done” and “The Ten Commandments of Money” because I want to learn how to invest in a 403B,  smart ways to save for my future baby, identify better ways to budget and utilize really practical tips on organizing the many projects in my life.  This has not always been how I have operated, in other manifestations of my self; I have jumped into the deep end and just told myself I would figure it out.  Thousands of dollars of debt, uncompleted projects and several unfulfilling relationships later, I would now say I take a bit more time to plan and take calculated risks.

I love planning my life and imagining what it could be, while I also love laying on the grass with nothing to do and watching the clouds go by. I equally love thinking of all of the places that I have been, people I have been with and dreams that I had that have long since disappeared.  I think of John Lennon’s quote “Life is what happens while we’re busy making other plans.”  And I think of Socrates’ message that “The unexamined life is not worth living.”  While I simultaneously hear Julia Cameron say however, “the unlived life is not worth examining.”  At the mid mark of my 28^th year, I sit in my Brooklyn brownstone apartment with the following entourage: my amazing partner working away in our little office space at the tremendous effort that is a PhD in Sociology, our cat, Shanti, swatting at flies that have found their way into her territory, a pile of dishes that wait for me to get the gumption to actually tackle, the third disk of the Harry Potter series, “Finding Water” the latest piece of The Artist Way journey from Julia Cameron, a folder of notes from the planning of my work’s summer program, and my own list of project and tasks that call for me to identify  baby steps to reach their completion.  Yes, I can say I’m on my way.  Somewhere.

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