As you may have read I am dedicating this year to uncovering the “authentic” me. And in fact, my word for 2021 is Authenticity. It is a coming home. An experience that I didn’t anticipate and that often catches me unprepared, or at least with the feeling of being off kilter. I find that in uncovering this truer and more honest version of who and what I am, life is becoming a bit of a spiral. I am so often flung back into the past to consider, contemplate, and process. At the same time there is an urgent need to learn and hold presence. Accountability to the moment.  And finally, a slow slip into faith in the future and in myself. A belief in ones ability to manifest the most beautiful version of our own possibilities. A faith in the connection and universal power we know but cannot see. Sometimes we lose our way, lose sight of what we love, what we need to be happy. Our feeling of comfort, or obligation, or what we are supposed to do takes over and we stray from our highest selves. The busyness of life steps in and dampens some of our lust for life, our self love, and self care. This photo is old but I can still feel the day, the emotions, the excitement. This is off the coast of South Africa on the way to an adventure in the unknown ocean. Sharks, freezing cold and rough waters, wet suits, cages in the ocean … the incredible power of deeply feeling alive. The connection to the world that only comes to me from really living awake and aware.

i never spent much time worrying about being afraid of things that seem standard. like spiders or snakes or muggers when i lived in big cities. i remember a friend’s mom commenting on how i seemed to float through life, a free spirit, untethered to the ground. she was right at the time. fear rarely kept from doing things that i probably should have thought twice about. 

Things like jumping in ice cold oceans with Great White sharks and bloody dead fish guts. Fear did stop me for a long time though. It was silent and invisible to so many. It stopped me from making new friends. It stopped me from fully pursuing a career as a writer, an artist, a speaker. These kinds of fears are insidious and they grab hold of you in a whole different way.