writings
A YEAR OF ACTIONS, NO MATTER HOW SMALL, THAT MARKS MY DECLARATION
OF ALIVENESS AND CREATIVE FOCUS
“The Gentle Exploration of a Creative Life” is a mission statement. The mission is a call to action for me to spend my life energy exploring and expanding on what it means to be a creative human.
The path to this has not been a linear one. It has been marked with false starts, forgotten passions, half-hearted attempts at following wishful whims. What would happen if I actually spent a year doing? This is the mission. I AM THE LAB is more than a personal declaration, a description borrowed from a poem.* It is a call-to-action, be it gentle, to fill the beakers, mix the elements, to pour and shake, to make and do.
Time moves and can beckon forward without me, but only if I stubbornly plant ourselves into a static place. But if I allow myself to flow with the river and match its power with my own movement, ah now, that is the thing to be. Not ‘become’: there is no version of myself that I am waiting for at the end. I will arrive as I am, either empty without fruitage, or full, with baskets and bushels of my own findings.
Can I still be satisfied with a life less fulfilled, less realized, less actualized? Or, do I seize on the moments, add them up, minute to minute, day to day, until something beautiful emerges? This is my choice and I choose this: a year of action, no matter how small, that make my proclamation of aliveness true. This declaration of creative focus and force is mine to declare, own and birth. Let’s see what remains I the end. This is the start.
07/16/26
Remember this when it is time,
The nerve it takes to create
is inherently mine.
—
I have this habit of holding tension in my midsection. It is one of those somatic sensations that slips from conscious awareness until you notice it. As a highly sensitive person with a deep history of complex trauma, it is little wonder that I used to have so many digestive problems. Not that I still don’t have a measure of them, but they have been reduced significantly, thanks to therapy. However, this one bodily sensation remains. I became aware of it again today and, once aware, I made the decision to actively let the tension go. What is astonishing to me is the flow of days that I was not aware. What subtle toll does holding this kind of quiet tension have on the body?
07/17/26
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Join us for a Kitchen Session, our monthly community gathering where we share whole-food, plant-based recipes, meal planning and more.
Join us for a Kitchen Session, our monthly community gathering where we share whole-food, plant-based recipes, meal planning and more.
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These are the books and magazines that deserve to make there way into your kitchen library. We support small bookshops via Bookshop.org where possible. A list of other links can be found on our Library page.