nature

Frozen Wednesday Feb 4. Frozen Wednesday.

The ground is still locked in ice. The trees are quiet. Even the deer step softer when the world feels this tense.

Nancy Guthrie is still missing — a family somewhere living every parent-child nightmare in real time.

Alex Pretti’s death has now been ruled a homicide, and the questions that follow feel heavier than the winter air.

The Epstein files continue to ripple across the world, upsetting old power structures and reminding us that truth has a way of surfacing — even when buried deep.

Meanwhile, the president is openly talking about national elections, and Americans are once again leaning forward, listening carefully, deciding what kind of country we want to be.

And yet… the Super Bowl is this weekend. Millions will gather, food will be made, laughter will spill across living rooms. Because that is also who we are — people who keep living, keep connecting, even while history churns around us.

This is the strange rhythm of being human:
fear and football, grief and groceries, uncertainty and love.

Stay warm. Stay aware. Stay kind to one another.

Strong humans don’t look away — but we also don’t forget how to hold each other up.

❄️

A Thing I Want: More Playful Imaginal Experiments. I'm almost shaking-quivering with excitement here, and I have to try to say something, but there's no really good way to say it. So here's the bad/incomplete/short version:

Play more with your imagination, it's fun!

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Let's start small. 

Imagine you have a box in your hands. How big is it? What is it made of? What does it smell like?

Open your box and notice that there's a key inside? What kind of key is it? A modern key, an old-timey key, a futuristic keycard? 

Now that you have your key in your hands, go find the door it opens. Where is the door? What does it look like? What textures does it have? 

Use the key to open the door. 

What's on the other side?

If you'd like, walk through the door and explore. Have fun! The real world will be here waiting for you.

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If you ran that experiment what happened? 

Isn't it strange and delightful that somehow, out of somewhere, there was a box and a key and a door and whatever the mystery decided to put on the other side of the door?

Or maybe it didn't – what did you find, or what happened when you tried?

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These kind of imaginal playgrounds are used by various groups for all kind of things: healing, self-development, magic, self-discovery, divination, etc.

My favorite group and use combination is kids for play. 

Let's make imagination fun again!

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I have so much to say about this that I feel overstuffed and confused. Where even to begin? So I'll just leave this here and ignore its incompleteness.

Maybe I'll try to say more later. Or maybe I'll just run more imagination experiments and tell you what happened.

Flowing down the Salt River. If you ever get a chance to paddle board the lower Salt River in Arizona just east of Phoenix, DO IT!!!  

What is it? It's a beautiful river in the middle of the arid Sonoran Desert.  You would not believe there is a flowing river just 30 minutes from a big city in one of the hottest dryest places in this country.  The drive out there is full of Saguaro cactus and the land looks dry as if no water can possibly be anywhere nearby.  Once you get to this Oasis, it's so lush and green, behind you are beautiful rocks that glow at sunrise and sunset.  But the best part of all are the WILD HORSES.

There's something so magical about seeing wild animals with such massive size and living this dream life in 110 plus temperatures, cooling off in the river and eating the river grass (looks like kelp).  Their freedom feels like our freedom.  It's like tasting freedom watching them roam, swim, eat, and often times, they are simply still just looking at you. Their stillness is like nothing I've ever witnessed in the wilds (not yet been to Africa, but something about this unique experience reminds me of my imaginations of a safari).

This river has changed me. It connects me to ancestors who didn't know roads or have vehicles, but created floating vessels to flow down rivers to discover new lands and new homes into the unknown. Every time the river is different, the water level, the power, the positions of the rocks, the wild life, all is always changing.  Like the saying goes "You can't step into the same river twice".  

There is a real magic of healing horses, no secret they are healers for the disabled, the lonely, and everyone. Their hearts are LARGE and they are emotionally intelligent.  You can feel their healing heart energy as you gently pass by within feet of their glory.  It's like being in the painting. It's like living in a nature documentary.

This experience is one of those things that words can recreate the experience, pictures and videos are not the thing. The feels are the thing that make it magical. Feeling like an explorer and witness wild and free creatures who feel you as you feel them.  Makes it feel like the whole world is OK.  It's hard to imagine the real world issues going on when you are quietly gently passing through a wild horse tribe.  They swim across the river, they run, they play, they even do the deed, most of the time they just take you in.  And sometimes when you're lucky, you'll see a beaver building a damn, a cute family of sea otters being cute like puppies.  The birds are all over and the bats come out as the moon rises.  Been down the river almost 30 times since May and it never gets old and it's never the same river twice. 

If you're ever near Phoenix between May and October, get to the river, there are board rentals, there are meet ups and many ways to make it happen, or just ask me and i'll get my spare board ready for you!

Fun to be back on Uptrust!

Thanks for the call to reconnect here Jordan.

Flowing down the Salt River. If you ever get a chance to paddle board the lower Salt River in Arizona just east of Phoenix, DO IT!!!  

What is it? It's a beautiful river in the middle of the arid Sonoran Desert.  You would not believe there is a flowing river just 30 minutes from a big city in one of the hottest dryest places in this country.  The drive out there is full of Saguaro cactus and the land looks dry as if no water can possibly be anywhere nearby.  Once you get to this Oasis, it's so lush and green, behind you are beautiful rocks that glow at sunrise and sunset.  But the best part of all are the WILD HORSES.

There's something so magical about seeing wild animals with such massive size and living this dream life in 110 plus temperatures, cooling off in the river and eating the river grass (looks like kelp).  Their freedom feels like our freedom.  It's like tasting freedom watching them roam, swim, eat, and often times, they are simply still just looking at you. Their stillness is like nothing I've ever witnessed in the wilds (not yet been to Africa, but something about this unique experience reminds me of my imaginations of a safari).

This river has changed me. It connects me to ancestors who didn't know roads or have vehicles, but created floating vessels to flow down rivers to discover new lands and new homes into the unknown. Every time the river is different, the water level, the power, the positions of the rocks, the wild life, all is always changing.  Like the saying goes "You can't step into the same river twice".  

There is a real magic of healing horses, no secret they are healers for the disabled, the lonely, and everyone. Their hearts are LARGE and they are emotionally intelligent.  You can feel their healing heart energy as you gently pass by within feet of their glory.  It's like being in the painting. It's like living in a nature documentary.

This experience is one of those things that words can recreate the experience, pictures and videos are not the thing. The feels are the thing that make it magical. Feeling like an explorer and witness wild and free creatures who feel you as you feel them.  Makes it feel like the whole world is OK.  It's hard to imagine the real world issues going on when you are quietly gently passing through a wild horse tribe.  They swim across the river, they run, they play, they even do the deed, most of the time they just take you in.  And sometimes when you're lucky, you'll see a beaver building a damn, a cute family of sea otters being cute like puppies.  The birds are all over and the bats come out as the moon rises.  Been down the river almost 30 times since May and it never gets old and it's never the same river twice. 

If you're ever near Phoenix between May and October, get to the river, there are board rentals, there are meet ups and many ways to make it happen, or just ask me and i'll get my spare board ready for you!

Fun to be back on Uptrust!

Thanks for the call to reconnect here Jordan.

I was driving to our Tango lesson this morning. It was sunny with clear skies around our home but 10 minutes into our drive, there were thick gray clouds for miles... as far as I could see. But then the highway curved to the right slightly, and I could see blue skies at the end of the clouds. Honestly, I was a bit surprised to see the blue skies because I had already expected that the rest of the drive would be under gray clouds. In that moment of seeing the blue skies, I realized that this was such a great metaphor for life... that sometimes our current experience can seem bleak and never ending. And that, in a moment, when we least expect it, we can see the 'light at the end of the tunnel' and have a different experience.

She laid down to JUST REST HER EYES but woke to discover that she Napped Way Too Long Again. In this thread, I will be serializing Claude writing this book.