once upon a time, a man was climbing a steep cliff face when, in the distance, he spotted a pigeon. this surprised him. he was so high that a pigeon was the last bird he expected to see. an eagle seemed possible, or maybe a falcon, but definitely not a pigeon.

the pigeon came closer and closer and closer. when it reached the man, it paused in the air and said, “you’re going the wrong way.”

this so startled the man that he almost lost his grip. it was the first time a pigeon had ever spoken to him. (or so he thought. a pigeon had actually said hello to him years ago on a pier on santa monica, but he assumed it was a passerby.)

the man decided to ignore the pigeon and kept on climbing.

“you’re going the wrong way!” the pigeon repeated, this time in a very aggrieved manner. “you need to go into the mountain, not up the mountain.”

the man was sure he was imagining things. he was pretty sure pigeons couldn’t talk. he was even more sure that he wasn’t supposed to go into the mountain, especially since he didn’t know how.

but just for laughs, he said, “open sesame”.

imagine his surprise when, with a groan, the mountain opened its mouth and he found himself staring into the blackness.

the pigeon patted him on the back with its wing and said, “there you go, mate. now you’re thinking” and then it flew off.

{to be continued in the story club}

this is golden hour on one of both atlas and my favorite places in the world: the wildwood trail in forest park.

atlas is so funny. whenever i stop to take pictures, and i’m there for a while, he comes back to check out what i’m doing. usually, he is unimpressed and continues on again.

“When you come to the edge of all the light you know,
and are about to step off into the darkness of the unknown,
Faith is knowing one of two things will happen:
There will be something solid to stand on
or you will be taught how to fly.”

– Barbara J. Winter

when i first met my niece savannah, she was only a few months old.

i spent most of that visit rocking her in the rocking chair or walking her around the living room – while telling her story after story after story.

i told her the story of the invention of organization, the story of queen savannah and her pony named mustard, the story of the bluebird of happiness, and so many other stories.

there is a reason that we read stories to children, especially bedtime stories, and it is not entirely about the stories.

if i close my eyes, i can feel savannah’s little head nestled on my shoulder when she was sleepy, or see her big blue eyes staring at me in wonder when she was awake, as my words circled in the air around us.

her mother and father often heard me telling stories – they would laugh from time to time, or marvel at how i kept going and going and going like the energizer bunny – but it felt like a sweet experience between just the two of us.

i know it seems like the story club is about stories, and it is, but it is also my way of creating that same experience for you.

it’s about reminding you of the power of the story, when shared between you and your children, to create a container for an intimate experience that bonds you.

the story club is a way to bring more creativity into your life, even when the days are long and busy.

i created the story club because i wanted you to have a way to receive new stories regularly, no time or effort required.

there is something special about old favorites, about reading the same stories over and over and over. there is also something special about new stories, and the creativity and imagination they can spark in the reader/listener.

sometimes there is a deeper meaning to the stories, but often they are the simple stories that children tell. the stories that go “and then and then and then” and end unexpectedly.

but isn’t that just like life? something happens and then something else happens and then something else happens. we are the ones applying meaning to all of it.

the story club is a way to create a unique shared experience between you and your child.

you won’t find the story club stories in stores.

you can’t go to the library and check them out.

there will be other people in the world that are reading them, but they will feel more like stories that are just between you.

and maybe someday you will tell me about your child.

and then someday they will find themselves in a story.

this past weekend, i was jolted with what felt like a blinding flash of clarity. it felt like a miracle, which makes sense, because i read somewhere that a miracle is really a shift in perspective, and my perspective shifted in that one moment.

i realized that i have all these assumptions and expectations – conscious and unconscious, spoken and unspoken – about EVERYTHING. and i realized how i make myself and everyone else wrong for not meeting them.

it sounds so silly when i say it because of course i do. it’s not like i haven’t heard this before. i’m pretty sure this is one of those foundational bits of wisdom.

but oh my gosh, i get it now, in my bones get it, and getting it feels like nothing i’ve ever imagined.

i feel like a little kid. everything is so new and fascinating.

take a phone call, for instance. i call someone, and then apparently i assume that they will call me back. but why? did i tell them to call? and even if i did tell them to call, why does telling them to call make me assume that they will call? i never had a conversation with them where i said “if i tell you to call me, can you agree to call me back? if yes, does this apply to every single instance? are there exceptions? what about a timeframe?”

or take a hello. i say hello. and then i expect the other person to say something back. but why? also, it is clear that i think that some answers are acceptable and some are not. why is that? and why do i feel rejected if they don’t say anything? they might have assumptions and expectations for the exact same situation that are completely different from mine.

and this applies to everything!

it was like everything melted away in that one moment and all i was left with was love. i wanted to call everyone in my life and tell them how sorry i was for all the ways i made them wrong. when i think about it, it seems a wonder we function at all. we’re all just bumbling along, doing the very best we can, and there’s no way we can know everyone else’s assumptions and expectations when we aren’t even aware of our own.

i feel like slightly future me, who always annoyed me with her zen-like outlook on life.

of course, life being life, i can feel the newness and wonder of this fading. but the thing i have noticed is that i am left with a very clear witness, at least related to expectations and assumptions. as soon as i do something, she points them out to me. often, once i am aware of them, they fall gently away. it is so freeing. i hope it lasts for a while.

i could write so much about this, and maybe someday i will, but today i simply want to tell you that the reason i am here, the reason i am really here, is to help you connect with hope & possibility & wonder, even when you are feeling overwhelmed, scared, lost, or alone.

(of course there is also a reason behind the reason, which is to reflect your beauty back to you, and there is also a reason behind the reason behind the reason, which is to share my vision of a world full of possibility & joy & wonder.)

i spend a lot of time thinking about the difference between our excellence and our genius.

i am still not entirely sure of the essence of my particular genius, but my sense is that it centers around this: the way i see the world, the way i can express my vision of the world in image and in word, and my ability to hold onto that vision no matter how hard it gets.

if there is one thing i am sure of, it is that i am not here to be a teacher or a healer.

there are so many amazing teachers and healers in this world.

because part of my work in this life is to learn to trust myself and my inherent wholeness, i am not here to be one of them.

it feels more like i am here to be a lighthouse.

i am here to shine a light of hope & possibility & wonder in a world that sometimes feels entirely too gloomy.

because even though there are moments when i cannot access hope & possibility & wonder for myself, i can always access them for you.

thinking about this reminded me of one of my ideas, which i shall playfully and temporarily title hope floats.

now seems like the perfect time to experiment with it.

this is your invitation to join me on a 30 day adventure.

hope floats is not an e-course.

i do not want to teach you anything.

i want to sit beside you while you take one breath. i want to sit beside you while you sink deeper into your body. i want to sit beside you while you feel more at home.

here is how it will work.

every day during the month of october, an image will arrive in your email.

i will invite you to look at the image while you take a single long breath.

along with the image, i will include a phrase or a quote or a question to consider. the words will be few, because i really want to take you out of language and into silence, the silence that feels like coming home.

a friend referred to this as energy prompts, a directional arrow for your mood, which i think is a lovely description.

you can think of hope floats as a compass. the arrow will always point you home.

if your heart is saying “yes”, i would love to have you along.

cost: $11

–>this offering is no longer available.

yesterday, i started writing a blog post titled “10 things you can do when the irs is knocking at your door”, because it made me giggle.

who knows, i may still finish and share it, but the moment is not right. i do, however, want to say that i am in what could best be described as a financial implosion.

one of the things i don’t talk about is money. not because i don’t like talking about it, because i actually do. i find money and personal finance to be interesting and fascinating and relevant. if there’s a book on money out there, i’ve probably read it. (years ago, i spent one birthday weekend at a cabin with atlas, eating angel food cake and chocolate pudding while reading every single rich dad poor dad book. now that is my idea of birthday fun. oh! i also own the rich dad cashflow game. i always forget about it – i haven’t played it in years – but it is so much fun.)

i also think that money is a topic that could use a great many more open and honest discussions. (i used to belong to a discussion board where people shared everything about money, up to and including numbers. it was the most fascinating board ever.)

at its core, money is simply a means of exchange, something we created to be of use. it is not inherently good or bad. the only value it has is what we ourselves apply to it – and that value is really only a story.

somehow, over the years, we seem to have given away much of our power to money; it can cause us to feel guilty and ashamed and irresponsible and to apply judgment to ourselves and others. this seems so strange because really, things are the way they are; they got there the way they got there; what’s right for one person is wrong for another; and our financial situation says nothing about our worth and value.

along with many other things, i think that talking about money is one of the ways we bring light into all the dark places and change this for the better.

i mostly don’t talk about money because it hasn’t popped into my head as a thing to talk about. or in this case, because i realized that i like people to buy my stuff because they love it and want it and the time is right, not because they are worried about me. but that, i decided, is a silly thing to worry about, because i always trust that you will do what’s right for you.

and it turns out that i do want to share where i’m at. not so that you will worry about me, or because i want or need sympathy. just because it is where i’m at and it feels important to share.

i must confess that this year has quite possibly been my hardest year yet. for two entirely different reasons. but inspiration and intuition have not led me to talk about them, so i do not.

and yet, the hard has been full of its own particular beauty, and i would not wish it away. i find that i am filled with even more love for myself, my sense of worth is more solid, and i am more and more able to access joy & possibility & wonder in moments when i would have previously thought them well out of reach.

what i feel moved to say today is this:

be gentle with yourself. if and as you can.

it’s hard to be alive sometimes. but you are doing a darn good job at it.

people, atlas here.

it has been the most exciting week!

on monday, i almost caught a bird. i would have caught it, only elizabeth pulled me away at the last minute. i don’t know why. she’s so strange sometimes. (she said something about thinking it would fly away and then it didn’t but i wasn’t really listening to her.) she should have let me catch it. it was just sitting there, waiting for me. i wouldn’t have hurt it. i don’t care about birds. i just wanted to sniff it.

on tuesday night, i stopped to sniff a rock on the path. it was cold and wet and then it jumped up and hopped away from me into the pond. i tried to catch it but it was too fast for me. what was it? what was that cold wet hopping thing?!

can you believe all the excitement? and it’s only wednesday. i wonder what else will happen this week. maybe i will finally catch my rabbit.

(has elizabeth told you the story of the rabbit yet? if not, she should. it was the best day ever. for me. elizabeth remembers a runaway pup and traffic and a sprained ankle. i remember chasing a speedy rabbit. oh, the fun. maybe she should have chased the rabbit with me.)

once upon a time, in a far away land known as wisconsin, a baby girl named savannah was born.

savannah was a very special baby. she was full of love & joy & fun and her family adored her.

one spring day, savannah was outside in the sunshine. her mother was taking her for a walk in her stroller. savannah was staring at the world with big eyes, taking it all in – it seemed to get bigger and bigger by the day – when a butterfly flew in front of her and paused in midair.

“hello,” said savannah. (of course, she didn’t say this out loud. she thought it, which is probably a good thing. her mother might have been a bit astonished to hear the word hello coming out of her baby daughter’s mouth. especially if she realized her daughter was saying hello to a butterfly.)

“hello,” said the butterfly. “i like you. would you like to come for a ride with me?” (you know, i don’t really know if the butterfly said this out loud or not. perhaps it only thought it. or perhaps it spoke in butterfly language – a language of fluttering dancing movement.)

regardless of how they spoke, the two understood each other perfectly.

the very next thing savannah knew, she was riding on the back of the butterfly, holding tightly to its neck, while its wings flapped and fluttered on either side of her.

{to be continued in the story club}