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Dear Subscriber First Name, Last month I wrote to you about how much my heart feels challenged these days. How I feel vulnerable and tenderized to a kind of thin membrane when I read the news; my nervous system revealing my aching heart in every part of my body. I shared with you that I was helped by turning toward myself and asking, “What would you do if you trusted yourself completely right now?” Your responses to this question moved me and helped create an even greater sense of belonging where many of our hearts reside in community. I am ever-grateful for your resonance. Thank you. In line with the changes I feel unfolding within and around me these days, I find that - by choice - I am not leaving my near-environs as much as I used to, and definitely without my old adventurous fervor. More and more, I am choosing and cherishing adventures in places closer to home, and with loved ones I am blessed to have nearby. I try not to make wrong the eager parts of me that remain antsy for something new, or get envious of others’ more far-flung experiences. I learn so much from them. It’s just that I want to learn to attend to my own adventurous yearnings looking through a new lens and listening differently for what else they might be saying and seeking. Kabir Das is known to have wisely said, “I felt in need of a great pilgrimage and so I sat still for three days.” It may be hard to sit quietly with what feels hard or lacking in our inner lives and the outer world, but it is reliably generative. It always helps us gain - again and again - perspective we can trust. In this spirit, for all of 2026, I have committed to a process loosely akin to Swedish Death Cleaning. This involves choosing one area of my home each month in which to examine and reduce clutter (which I have discovered illuminates an abundance of delayed decisions!) that might otherwise be a burden to my loved ones when I die. So far, it has proven to be a revealing and insight-producing process. I am currently weeding through everything in my office - voluminous chapters of my life - to create a dedicated, sacred space to begin a regular book-writing practice at home, in earnest. If you know me or are anything like me, you will know that this is a rather radical aspiration. Why? Because I - like many of us - have always thought I needed to leave home in order to be a creative, generative writer. (See my museletter about going on a recent writing retreat here). Looking through all of my old datebooks, photos, and journals this month, I can see that for most of my adult life - and even in my fairly recent past - when I felt in need of perspective, I would tend to “go away” somewhere. When I wanted to see things inside and in front of me differently, I went somewhere else…to see different things. And while this worked to broaden my vision of the world (important!), and always granted me inspiring photos, journal entries, and memories (important!), the perspective I was seeking did not ever really last once I was back home. And throughout it all, the belief remained: To have the perspective I need in order to gain insight and be creative, I need to go away. Go. Somewhere. Anywhere but the home I love and where I actually feel most supported. Today, I am operating on the assumption that it’s never too late to change an encrusted belief system. I am committed to using the practices of living gratefully to help me cultivate the spiritual musculature of perspective wherever I am. As who I am. Here. Now. Always. Unconditionally. I am intent on making use of the wisdom of gratefulness to support me in my life, and my creative process, to ask incisive questions, speak deeper truths, and remember what really matters to me - without having to leave home to be reminded of what I already know. As I embark on “staying,” I wonder if there are places in your life you might be feeling called to stay… Thank you for being here. I hope this museletter inspires your sense of perspective. Please freely explore the resources below and on my website anytime to see how powerfully a song, a poem, an article, a quote or a question can open your heart to new ways of seeing, and BEing. From my grateful heart to yours -
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