Resend: The Wk of 9/10/26 Grapes. Oil. Darkness & Diamonds.💠🍇

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I was pounding my chest with my fist as I drove east on North Highway 290, back toward my house, just sobbing. I have been doing a gratitude practice for a few weeks now. (The pounding thing is called a thyroid thump. It helps to open the heart & strengthen the immune system). And on this particular day, the emotional dam broke. 

A friend this week sent me an old photo of myself. It was my faculty picture from when I taught lit/writing up in North Austin. And that was over a decade ago by now. I thought to myself: I looked so much younger. I hardly even remember that person. I honest-to-God busted my arse to get that job. And only after a handful of semesters there, I quit. I quit for the yoga I had fallen in love with. But what had occurred to me upon imaging that old photo of myself was the bad, bad anxiety I had at that time. My life before that job was dark. I had been in deep recovery mode from a big life-valley. 

Seeing that old picture triggered a long ribbon of images from various chapters or summits in my life. And I re-felt what it took inside of myself to become each new version of me (crippling anxiety; releasing ugly, deadly addictions; immense courage; blinding trepidation; an almost-impossible resistance; an awful-sadness; excitement; esteem and faith). All that feeling-ful ( & scary) shit alchemized me. And do you also wonder, as I do, that perhaps, just maybe, that all of the painful, weird, scary shit that we are seeing and experiencing as a collective as of late is alchemizing/transmutating US?

I heard one person describe our world’s present circumstances as existential strength training. I thought that was pretty clever. I say the words I’m saying now for those of us that are struggling with this new set of heavier weights we are being asked to contend with; ie moments or days or extended periods of great uncertainty. Confusion. White-hot frustration. Information overload. Feeling unsafe in our lives, bodies and worlds. This is our valley. And some days the valley is cool and almost pleasant. There are good days to be had here! And utterly shitty ones. And others still: terrifying. Lonely. What-the-fuckifying!

That ribbon of images and outpouring of gratitude I experienced this week on 290, heading east, reminded me of a High Truth that my own personal bones know: nothing has gone wrong. Does it feel/look like it is/has? Abso-damn-lutely yes it does. The world as we have known it IS, after all, falling apart around us. And some of us have felt so cellularly-exhausted by it, that we sat down, unbudging and afraid, in the valley. But we will or are slowly getting up. And we may sit back down 2 or 200 times. But we will, in perfect timing, begin our ascent. Ya know how when you’re sick you feel like you’ll never ever ever feel better again? And then one day, ya do. And a few days later, you forget you were ever sick?

Pens Chödrön says: “Things fall apart. And then they come together. And then they fall apart again. And then come back together again. That is the nature of all things.” I have to keep reminding myself of this in the weird moments, ya know? I gotta keep remembering these things. They are buoys in dark, choppy waters. 

And. 

I am holding in my mind’s eye an image of myself at that next peak…the stronger and the better for the climb. I mean, I’m literally imagining that photo. Down to the jeans and sand-colored boots I’m wearing. And I’m holding images of you all too. Almost like an internal vision board. I’m not saying this is an answer. Thought maybe its a granule of one. There does happen to be some Science behind this. And at the very least, it helps me feel more calm in the uncertain chaos. And for me, that’s an answer in itself. I’ll take it.

The idea bears repeating: nothing has gone or is going wrong. Even though many days it feels like it has and is. What if…what IF a divinely perfect orchestration of events is taking place. And you’re free, of course, to think what I’m saying is total bullshit. Though my hope is this: that you hold that sentiment as a maybe. A maybe, to me, creates an open inner state. And our health does better in that state as opposed to a closed one. I want for my own heart, some solace. I want for YOUR heart, some solace. And I have no answers. Just granules perhaps. Just little heart-thoughts and downloads that I use to help me make it through. And hence, I share them with you.

Together we sit toward the end of 2026, and I feel a growing birth pain inside of an extended labor. Solar activity (see: biometeorology) has been very high and active and unstable-feeling to me. In my understanding, solar weather (plasma from the sun striking Earth’s electromagnetic field) can cause symptoms of physical illness as well as emotional & mental strain. Some days it seems (& I suspect it is) the dark is getting darker. And at the same time, the light is brightening. A line from a poem I wrote over 20+ years ago: “It’s a short-lived, but ferocious ride.” Yep.  And, ablaze with unfathomable beauty. It is here. All around. I continue to look for it. Aka: another buoy. 

I am a perfectly flawed creature. As I believe we all, perhaps on purpose, are. I used to not be ok with that, but I’m becoming so. I didn’t come to this planet to win some perfectionism contest. I came here for a whole, fascinating, feeling-full experience to help me expand consciousness/the soul. And so I remember to go easy on myself when I want to be mean to me for “not navigating better.” Like my 70 year old friend Bear said to me earlier this year: “Just go out there & do your best, kid.” That’s all we can do. And like my friend Denise says: “It’s just a life, babe.” I hold on to all of these words. All buoys for me.

If ever you should need support of any kind, please text (561-793-9150) for ideas or possible recommendations. I know a buncha helpful folks. If you happen to resonate with my weird ways, I am putting my own private offerings on sliding scale for at least the rest of the year. And have a couple of spots for pay-whatever-or-nothing if you’re under financial strain.   

Yours in the great mix of it all. Love you, little earth-beans. 

Ek 

PS, New Moon in Virgo today (9/10) says to me: get organized in all of the ways as summer (on paper) closes and we start walking toward autumn. AND, be as kind to yourself as possible right now. You’re doing a phenomenal job inside of a highly-transitory, highly-transformational time. 

And tomorrow (9/11) is an anniversary date that can bring up a bunch of emotional energy. Take good care of you cause you is precious n special. 😉

PPS, see some of you soon: 

NEW CLASS: Tuesdays 3pm Flow

Thursdays, 3 PM FLOW, and…

also  4:30 pm Flow & Chill, all at Flow Yoga North Loop (5501N Lamar Blvd)

(**always check Flow Yoga North Loop & Westgate online class schedules for last minute schedule changes. Also, last minute sub opportunities arrive throughout the week that I cover).

The text directly below is the reading for the week. Just beneath that is a definition of transmutation.

The two readings below are from last week. xo