The holidays are coming and I know the more I can fill my cup with rest now, the better prepared I will be to surf all the emotions with grace and love and maybe even ease. I'm keeping a late-autumn rest rhythm that is simple. Eight steps:

I took a solo retreat last weekend to focus on writing. It's been a couple of years since I did this, and to be perfectly honest it was a mixed bag.

I am delighted to announce the third volume of Lucia, Wild, has arrived. It will ship out to subscribers on August 30. We printed a limited quantity, and you (my beautiful Notes from the Heart tribe) have first dibs.

I have some exciting news that falls under the category of "it's about time." We are officially sending Issue Three of Lucia to print next week. It will be available to purchase--and mailed to you if you are one of our subscribers--this September.

In fact, this is the first rule of creativity. It is so important to remember: Reality is malleable and we can shape it.

Have you ever found yourself falling in love with a whole new color? I don't just mean a new shade or subtle gradation of an old favorite…

Dear ones, Friday morning I had an Alexander Technique lesson and at the end my teacher told me about a book she is reading which explores why patriarchy persists. What intrigued me was what it said about voice. The author ascribes power to the way we learn--from childhood--to use our voice…

On the afternoon of my forty-fourth birthday, I ran outside to catch the sky. One of my girlfriends had texted to tell me it was a gorgeous day for a birthday, “the sky!”

On International Women's Day, I am thinking of the women in my life and their brilliance and of the men in my life and their courage.

Dear ones, I’ve been photographing the light again and thinking of each of you with so much love and gratitude. It has been several months since I sent an email, and there’s a lot to share…

I know there is brilliance in this day, it is just a bit hard to see without coffee. So I take a full breath, remind my throbbing lower brain, “This is just change,” and walk ever so slowly to the coffee shop.

The last seven months have been a journey. All the elements of a story and I have been wanting to share writing about it—it’s not time yet but maybe soon.

I've started taking Alexander Technique lessons. It is a way of learning how to move more mindfully and inhabit the body with greater ease.

I've taken the coming week off of the consulting work I do for a living, in order to sink more deeply into this summer, Lucia, and the creative life . . .

A bit of progress I'm excited to share, and there is no other real reason for this short Daily Note than to say "it's coming" and "I am excited" and "finally." Last week, the completed layout of Lucia's third print issue went into a Dropbox folder for Karly (design advisor) and Sarah (who graciously agreed to serve as copy editor). This issue has been nearly two years in the making…

Last week I discovered an envelope in my post office box, one I had missed for months somehow. It was a thank you note from a writer named Lauren with whom I had brunch last autumn. She had tucked a thin glossy 4x6 photograph into the card, a gesture that felt like magic. Placing snapshots into letters has become so rare in the age of Instagram that it almost seems vintage…

I am experiencing something in my personal life right now that feels stressful to my body, my nervous system, and my brain because I associate it with big fears. Old patterns of thinking loom large. Even though the truth is that things have changed, and even though the likelihood is strong there will come a positive outcome this time, still I find myself ruminating on what might go wrong…

I have been wishing for a visual divider between my little yard and my neighbor's huge driveway. Wishing for my space to feel bounded, intimate, more magical. Wishing to look out my living room window and see quiet beauty surrounding me. I have been wishing for four years…

…Friendship is like this, I realized. We start with a container, we mix simple ingredients like flour and water, love and curiosity. We are patient. When the starter bubbles we feed it. We give it room to grow. And when it is established and has fed our hearts, we share a little bit, thereby inviting even more magic from what we have started.

Today is Earth Day. I am still gazing at the sky. Yesterday was Day Nineteen of The 100 Day Project. I decided to take a break from the routine of sharing one new restorative yoga pose each day on Instagram. Instead, I chose to meditate…

Mercury leaves retrograde today. Hal-le-LUUUU-jah! The past few weeks were like a cat in the doorway. (Coming in. No, going out. No, just staying here for now. Wait, but I think I want to go out.) Electronic communication went haywire. Texts disappeared into the aether. Phone calls were not received. Three people I know had computers crash and bought new machines. There is more...

There is a jar in my home filled with coins. Occasionally a $20 or $100 bill goes in. These large bills never stay long, though. They come and go, as real money tends to do. The change is the only constant. It reminds me that change accumulates slowly, piece by piece, until one day we look and see what it has become: enough. Enough of what we need. Enough of what we don’t. Enough is enough.

This morning has a softness, a peace to it that is hard-won and deeply rewarding. I am making space.The curvy trail sign where I often walk reminds me that life and relationships are not linear journeys. There will always be turns, there will always be moments and phases when we--and our loved ones--question everything. 

I've been practicing a new thought upon waking: "There is enough time. I have enough time. I have enough."

Who has recovered from the holidays? My tree is still up, for today. New pink roses and ranunculus in a vase soften the shadow of what is now Christmas past as they filter January's light. My word for the year is actually two words, which seems fitting considering it is a mystical "11" year (2+0+1+8=11) and of course, one plus one is two. The words I chose are creative focus...

Extended time with my family of origin always seems to feel like eating a mixed bag of jelly bellies in a dark movie theater. I am going to eat the whole bag because my favorite flavors are in there...

In order for rose hips to develop, one must leave her roses on the bush and avoid the temptation to cut them off mid-summer. She must be willing accept that they will go through a phase of crinkling brown. She must teach herself to love this uncomfortable season of transformation as much as she loved the promise of new buds in May and those soft pink petals in June...

Harvest season is here, the healer told me yesterday. Curious, I asked for more. "It is really three seasons," she explained as I curled into her big turquoise velvet armchair, sipping filtered water from a small mason jar...

My friend called this morning from her new perch on the East Coast. I was sipping coffee and watching Sunday morning rustle through maple leaves in my yard. "The things I need are space and time," I heard her say. It seems there is never enough of either, and yet we are surrounded by them. It is the ultimate paradox of a human life...

Sunday morning I sat on the threshold, in the doorway from my home to the garden, drinking coffee and missing her...