A 52-52 doodle

Yesterday I sent out (finally! yay!) the “52 Weeks: 52 Ways to Love Your (Wild) Self” e-guide to everyone on AHT’s mail list. (Thank you for the amazing response!) For those who aren’t subscribed but still pop by here now and then, I also made an announcement yesterday: I’m simplifying!

Ever since setting up A Human Thing, I’ve struggled with how to divide my content. I thought it would be much easier than it has been. Turns out there is a ton of overlap between my two spaces. The fearless love I write about  here fuels the wild creativity and general northiness that I write about on Zebra Sounds, and vice versa. So, after months of wasting time trying to segment myself and my audience, I’m going to do just the opposite.

I’m consolidating all my magical messy into one place: judyclementwall.com.

From there, I’ll blog about fearlessness and creativity, about choosing love and choosing your North, even when those choices are hard… especially when those choices are hard. There will be a store. There will be big, unruly art projects and inadvisable adventures. There will be doodles and comics and essays and love stories, and there will be (as always) a community of creative, badass love warriors, with big dreams and bigger hearts.

So…

This is my last post on A Human Thing. That makes me a tiny bit sad, but only a tiny bit, because here’s a true story:

For months I’ve been struggling with chronic neck-shoulder-back pain, sometimes so bad, only Vicodin eases it. Since making the decision to consolidate and simplify and go for the art that lights me up (rather than the art that I think I’m supposed to want to do), I haven’t had to take even over-the-counter medicine for pain.

If I needed confirmation, there it is. Our bodies are amazing barometers of our souls.

If you’re on AHT’s mailing list, you’ll be getting an email when the new site is up and running (just a few weeks from now). In the meantime, I’ll post on Zebra Sounds (and I’ve been pretty lively on Facebook if you’d like to join me there).

I’m so excited. I hope you are too.

xo

And there’s more.

I’m not sure when exactly I stepped off the path I was on, but tectonic shifts are underway; big, big changes are in the works, and some very exciting offerings are on the horizon. I can’t wait to share them with you, but I have to. I’m still working through it all.

I can share this, though: a taste of the guide, which (woo-hoo!) will be sent out by this time next week!

xo

52-52 Doodle: Plug Into Your World

]]> http://www.ahumanthing.net/2012/09/10/something-wicked-wonderful-this-way-comes/feed/ 26 http://www.ahumanthing.net/2012/09/03/leaping-muscles-all-a-twitch/ http://www.ahumanthing.net/2012/09/03/leaping-muscles-all-a-twitch/#comments Mon, 03 Sep 2012 16:41:21 +0000 j http://www.ahumanthing.net/?p=1870 My husband has been traveling so I’ve commandeered the bed. It’s my workspace. Across its surface are doodles in various stages of done, and pages from “52 Weeks: 52 Ways to Love Your (Wild) Self” with edits and notes in the margins. There are two big picture books (I SPY and STAR WARS) which I use for their hard surfaces. There are dozens of sharpies and colored pencils, a tracing light box, and my notebook, where my thoughts keep leading me out beyond this project to the next and the next. I shove it all over to my husband’s side of the bed when it’s time to sleep, then spread it out again when it’s time to work.

Inside and out, (beautiful) shit is happening here.

52-52 doodle: Celebrate your body

On Zebra Sounds, I often write about North, a metaphor I like for living one’s best, truest life – one in which your strengths (your art, your passion, your talent) and the world’s needs align. Since The Hiatus I’ve been in the midst of a slight-on-the-outside, powerful-on-the-inside, course correction. It’s exciting and unnerving. I feel utterly daunted one minute and completely fearless the next. I’m like a mad writer-scientist, and there’s nothing I’d rather be doing.

Which is a long way of saying, I didn’t write a post for today. But it’s okay because last week I rediscovered a poem. I loved it the first time I read it,  a couple of years ago, but it holds special meaning to me now, when, ready or not, I find myself at yet another crossroads, leaping muscles all a twitch.

I’m sharing it with you because it’s beautiful and deeply, deeply stirring.

~~~~~

We have come to be danced
by Jewel Mathieson

We have come to be danced
not the pretty dance
not the pretty, pretty, pick me, pick me dance
but the claw our way back into the belly
of the sacred, sensual animal dance
the unhinged, unplugged cat is out of its box dance
the holding the precious moment in the palms
of our hands and feet dance.

We have come to be danced
not the jiffy booby, shake your booty for him dance
but the wring the sadness from our skin dance
the blow the chip off our shoulder dance
the slap the apology from our posture dance.

We have come to be danced
not the monkey see, monkey do dance
one, two dance like you
one, two, three dance like me dance
but the grave robber, tomb stalker
tearing scabs & scars open dance
the rub the rhythm raw against our souls dance.

We have come to be danced
not the nice invisible, self-conscious shuffle
but the matted hair flying, voodoo mama
shaman shakin’ ancient bones dance
the strip us from our casings, return our wings
sharpen our claws & tongues dance
the shed dead cells and slip into
the luminous skin of love dance.

We have come to be danced
not the hold our breath and wallow in the shallow end of the floor dance
but the meeting of the trinity; the body, breath & beat dance
the shout hallelujah from the top of our thighs dance
the mother may I?
yes you may take ten giant leaps dance
the ollie ollie oxen Free Free Free dance
the everyone can come to our heaven dance.

We have come to be danced
where the kingdoms collide
in the cathedral of flesh
to burn back into the light
to unravel, to play, to fly, to pray
to root in skin sanctuary
We have come to be danced
WE HAVE COME

Honestly, I’m not exactly sure how the Summer of Soul widget works, but the “end date” is August 31st. I think the SUBMIT button goes away then, but… we shall see!  (Look how comfortable I’m getting with uncertainty.)

As I’m writing this post, NPR is giving traffic updates. It’s gnarly out there, and the traffic guy just said, “Summer is definitely over,” which made me a little sad. On the other hand, we’ll have our project to visit whenever we want, right? Over the weekend, I’ll move the Summer of Soul gallery to its own page. In the meantime, here is some more summer magic for you…

~~~~~~

In the center of my town, there is a fountain where children often gather when it’s hot. Their gathering is one of my favorite signals that summer has begun.

~~~~~

Recently, alone and feeling in need of a natural beauty infusion, I drove to a nearby reservoir…

On my way home from my reservoir adventure, something a little magical happened. Here’s what I wrote in Facebook.

Driving home from someplace pretty today, the tread came completely off my right front tire, which is kinda scary when you’re driving on a freeway. I pulled over and examined the damage and made some phone calls since I was clearly not going to be where I said I’d be when I said I’d be there.

Then as I was calling for roadside assistance, roadside assistance magically appeared before me in the form of a giant tow truck. When the driver got out and started walking toward me, I bounded out of my car like a puppy, so happy to see him. He pulled my car onto his truck, drove us to the nearest parking lot, changed my tire and, when I took out my credit card, he said, “Don’t worry about it.” I raided my wallet and handed him $22 saying, “It’s not enough but it’s all I have.”

He said, “It’s more than I expected,” so I hugged him because, holy shit. That sort of kindness still happens.

x

For one more week, you can add your link to the Summer of Soul project HERE

♥♥♥♥♥♥

I’m (very) hard at work on the “52 Weeks, 52 Ways To Love Your (Wild) Self” e-guide. I decided to illustrate it myself (and by illustrate, I mean doodle) (and by doodle, I mean… holy big-fat-leaps, Batman, wait until you see this)! That decision has slowed me down a bit (I might not quite make August 31st), but it’s also making the e-guide feel more special – a truly handmade gift for everyone on my mailing list because I’m so grateful for this amazing community of open-hearted, hippie, badass love warriors.

If you want to get the guide and you’re not on the mailing list… yikes! You can rectify that immediately here!

Oh, and this is the last week to download The Love Essays for free. My intent in allowing a free option was to make sure everyone who participated in my 2011 Love Project would be able to read the essays, regardless of their ability to pay. It’s been three months now, so this weekend I’ll be turning off the “allow free download” option. (A special thanks to everyone who took the time to write to me about how the essays affected them. Your messages of love and support meant more than you can possibly know.)

xo

Photo credit: Marcie Scudder

1.

I’ve been undone by the story of writer Patti Digh and her husband, John, recently diagnosed with kidney cancer. Uninsured through an employer and unable to afford the exorbitant premiums of private health insurance, they faced not only the terrifying diagnosis itself, but also the mind numbing, gut wrenching question of how they could ever hope to afford treatment.

Patti posted, as always, openly about the scary road ahead, and the response has been nothing short of miraculous. Patti wrote:

… so many people have shared this, so many people we know and don’t know have given. People have made and sold their art for us. They have opened lemonade stands. And created Team Brilliant t-shirts. So many fairies and unicorns and love. It is such a sign of hope in a world of pain that we take care of each other, still.

Her unicorn reference isn’t just whimsical phrasing. Patti’s friends set up an Indiegogo page to raise funds for John’s treatment, and an anonymous donor known only as The Unicorn promised to give $25,000 as soon as the funding reached $50,000 (which it has).

2.

Healthcare (or the lack of affordable healthcare) is an issue near and dear to my heart. Like Patti, I’m a writer without employer-sponsored health insurance. My husband and a handful of engineering wizards are trying to save the world with their start-up company, developing an alternative fuel technology. It’s noble, but for the foreseeable future, we’ll have to struggle under the considerable weight of our private health insurance premiums. Our coverage is honestly pretty crappy. A diagnosis like John’s would, even with insurance, be financially very, very scary.

And we’re the lucky ones – my family and Patti’s.

I’ve been so incredibly heartened by the community that has gathered together for Patti and John. They’re a living example of how love begets love. It’s really impossible to read Patti’s writing and not fall a little in love with her (and her family, since they are often the subjects of her stories and posts). Patti’s work is big, honest, funny, poignant. She shares her life with her tribe without pretense, without expectation. That they (and I count myself among them) would gather around her in this time of need makes perfect sense to me. This is where fearlessness and love connect. This is the intersection where magic happens.

3.

And yet…

4.

I  can’t help thinking about the people who get a diagnosis like John’s when they’re all alone, without health insurance, without resources.

I wish I lived in a world where what’s happening for Patti didn’t feel so unusual, so special and rare.

I wish it were commonplace to feel so supported.

I wish our everyday interactions reflected an appreciation for our connectedness, a willingness to be genuinely concerned for one another, a deep down desire to not only ease each other’s suffering, but share each other’s load.

I wish it happened on a much larger scale – this unleashing of wild creativity rooted in love and generosity.

I wish our default position was love.

5.

Last month, The $100 Startup author, Chris Guillebeau, held his second annual World Domination Summit. At the end of the event, he gave each of his 1000 attendees an envelope filled with $100 and a challenge to start something good. He could have done so many different things with that money. Paid himself better. Paid his volunteers. Put it toward next year’s summit. He chose instead to invest it in people who want to positively impact the world.

When I heard that story I was stunned. When I watched the video of Chris announcing his plan, it gave me chills. There needs to be more people like that, I thought. And they need to hold public office, and vote, and teach children, and write books, and open animal shelters, and be doctors, and launch startups, and make art… and they need to band together in overlapping communities of purpose.

And then I thought, those people I’m imagining?

They’re us.

♥♥♥♥♥♥

Want more?

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]]> http://www.ahumanthing.net/2012/08/20/the-people-im-imagining/feed/ 18 http://www.ahumanthing.net/2012/08/13/you-just-call-out-my-name/ http://www.ahumanthing.net/2012/08/13/you-just-call-out-my-name/#comments Mon, 13 Aug 2012 08:01:29 +0000 j http://www.ahumanthing.net/?p=1749

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about our connectedness, about how evolutionarily we humans banded together as a means of survival, but now our connections are more often about love, friendship, expansion, meaning; about delving deeper and soaring higher than we ever could by ourselves.

I’ve felt irresistibly drawn to the subject of friendship, in my own writing and in the writing of others. Today, I’m sharing.

♥♥♥

I wrote about friendship for the Huffington Post, “A Lesson in Proper Prioritization.” Part of writing for publication is understanding the market you’re writing for. I was a little nervous about this one because HuffPo is big on authoritative pieces with titles like “How To Be A Better Friend” or “10 Ways to Build Stronger Friendships,” and what I wanted to write was this intimate little story about an afternoon I spent sitting in a strawberry patch with one of my dearest friends. As it turns out, I didn’t need to worry. Here’s a bit of it. I hope you’ll go read the rest.

She has been in my life through more thick and thin than any other. And yet, the physical distance between our houses, the daily responsibilities of work and children and managing a life… all of it gets in the way. I forget, and it isn’t until finally we mesh our calendars and manage a rendezvous, and I’m sitting across from her at a table or side by side on a beach, that I remember how precious our relationship is. In those moments, I feel friendship like a high.

♥♥♥

I was so saddened to hear of writer David Rakoff’s death last week. I’ve been a huge admirer of his since the first time I heard him on This American Life talking about how Canadians can recognize each other via some sort of coding in their DNA. (It’s hilarious. You should listen. Especially if you’re Canadian.) Critics, when they review Rakoff’s essay collections, often focus on his pessimism and his razor sharp, sarcastic wit, but underneath that is the thing that drew me to his work: a defiant sort of sweetness, an underlying hope.

In the aftermath of his death, his friends set up a Tumblr to share with the rest of us the many crafty little gifts he made for them over the course of his life. There is a submission link, so new posts go up every day. It’s beautiful and touching and even if you’re unfamiliar with David Rakoff’s writing, it’s worth seeing what a lifetime of friendships looks like.

♥♥♥

I could not love this comic (made for Brene Brown) more. I want it on a t-shirt. In fact, I so much want it on a t-shirt that I clicked over to its creator’s site, Dharma Comics, to see if it was available in some purchasable form. The bad news is, there isn’t a shop. The good news is, holy big-open-hearted-talent, Batman, this blog is beautiful! I’m totally smitten and am now following and liking Dharma Comics everywhere. (Leah, the creator, is located in San Francisco, but I’m not going to stalk her. I do have some restraint.)

♥♥♥

I subscribe to Danielle LaPorte‘s Truth Bombs, which get lobbed into my email inbox almost daily. Recently she sent this:

How can I help? This phrase works for tragedies and boo boos and bad days. It quells panic. It can create urgency or buy time. It’s effective with strangers and lovers. Everyone understands it. How can I help?

I love that. I often feel tongue tied in highly emotional situations. Even with my boys, I’ll sometimes feel helplessly lost, unsure about how to best show them I’m here. I love that asking, “How can I help?” opens a path for both the person asking and the person being asked.

♥♥♥

This past week, I finished a couple of pending projects and buckled down on the 52 Weeks – 52 Ways to Love Your (Wild) Self e-guide. I’m pouring myself into it, creating something I believe is going to be really special. I’m aiming to send it to everyone on the email list by the end of August. And I’m revamping the monthly emails, which are going to be heartfelt and fun and intimate and useful. I so want you to be a part of all that’s coming.

Join the mail list.

xo

Last Thursday, my friend Jill Salahub wrote a post that stopped me in my tracks. It was about love and grief and fear, the pain and healing of forward motion. It was about being human and as I read it, I felt absolutely connected to her, as if her post were a sort of Kirtan chant and all that was needed now was my response.

Maybe it felt that way in part because Jill’s post was a response too. She was writing so openly and honestly about love and grief in answer to a post by Connie Hozvicka, “Piecing Together The Sky Grows & Grows.” Piecing Together The Sky is a project that grew out of Connie’s grief over the loss of her dear friend, Uncle Johnny. She’d taken a picture of the sky right after hearing about his death, and she was struck by how ever-changing the sky is, how it seems stable and still but in reality it’s completely different from one minute to the next. Unpredictable. Unreliable. Like life.

Connie couldn’t stop looking at the sky, feeling oddly reassured and held by it. She took more pictures. She invited others to take pictures and send them to her and over 300 people responded. They shared their own stories of loss. Connie made a video called Piecing Together The Sky in honor of her lost friend and then, moved by the overwhelming response to her call, she extended the idea, inviting bloggers all over the world to post pictures of the sky and write about the people who have touched them, the loves they have lost.

So Jill answered Connie’s call and I’m answering Jill’s, though not to talk about who or what I’ve lost. What stopped me in my tracks when I read Jill’s post was her willingness to share, to open herself up completely and show us her truest self, and especially that she did it in response to Connie’s revealing of her own beautiful, aching heart.

If I were looking for proof that we are all connected, that we do absolutely hold each other’s hearts in our hands and that sharing our stories heals and empowers us, could I ask for more than this? (Of course, I don’t need proof. I know it in my core, a deep down cellular knowledge that we join together in order to survive; we love each other in order to thrive.)

We are technically beyond the date of Connie’s invitation to participate and receive a copy of her beautiful painting, but somehow I think that’s better. I love the idea of all of us together, willingly connected, holding each other’s hearts in our hands, quilting together the pieces of Connie’s sky because in the end, of course, it’s our sky too.

♥♥♥♥♥♥

I’m getting more active on Facebook. If you want to connect with me there, come on over and LIKE A Human Thing.

And I’m creating a fun, funky, embrace-your-wild-self e-guide. It’s called “52 Weeks – 52 Ways to Love Your (Wild) Self.” It will be filled with magic,  truth, doodles, shenanigans, recipes, wisdom… and love, of course, from me to you. It’s a gift for everyone on my mailing list, and it’s coming in late-August.

Join the mail list!

xo

It occurs to me that maybe our lives are full of this sort of magic all the time, but on autopilot, we miss a lot of it. That’s what I like about our Summer of Soul project: it makes me pay attention to what feeds me and what drains me. I watch for opportunities to soak in beauty, big ideas, wild creativity. When I look at all your pictures, I’m so awed and inspired. I’m also reminded to look around my own life and notice how truly gorgeous and extraordinary “ordinary” life can be.

Here’s a bit of what’s been filling my soul-tanks of late…

~~~~~

Books! I’ve been reading (and reviewing) a lot of books over the past few weeks, and I’ve popped into a couple of used bookstores. (If there’s a heaven, I think it’s made of used bookstores, joined by hiking trails.) I also picked up two new books in San Francisco: Nichole Bernier’s The Unfinished Work of Elizabeth D (which I’ve been dying to read since I first read its title several months ago), and Cheryl Strayed’s Tiny Beautiful Things (because my Dear Sugar love knows no bounds.)

 *

Strawberries! On my friend-and-soul-sister’s birthday, we traveled south to pick strawberries at Swanton Berry Farm. What we did instead was sit side by side in adjoining rows of the strawberry field, staring out at the Pacific Coast, talking about life and parenting and God and quantum physics (really!)… getting lost in our friendship and forgetting, until the last few minutes of our date, to actually pick the strawberries we’d come to pick.

Best birthday ever.

Love: 10% discount on strawberries if you ride your bike to the farm.

Me, taking pictures of strawberries.

*

Hiking! I know, I’m a broken record. What can I say?

Stinson Beach

Stinson Beach

Stinson Beach (Table Rock)

Muir Woods

Muir Woods (look closely, there’s a bridge!)

Muir Woods (with the fog rolling in)

Muir Woods (Chad, goofin’)

And speaking of goofing off, I think we all need to play more. Hence… sparkler art! On the fourth of July, my boys and I wrote  “fearless love” while Chad took our picture (with a 10-second exposure). We wrote other things too; look here. Sparklers for the soul, baby.

*

Add your link to the Summer of Soul project here.

~~~~~

Clare Flourish commented on my interview with Julia Fehrenbacher and, in doing so, won a copy of Julia’s book, On The Other Side Of Fear. Clare wrote a truly stunning, soulful response to the book on her own blog.

~~~~~

Want more? Join the mailing list!

My monthly emails are about to get a hiatus-inspired makeover – still heartfelt and personal, but also full of stuff that will inspire you to live, work, play and create at the intersection of fearlessness and love. Plus, I’m putting together a fun, funky, embrace-your-wild-self e-guide. It’s called “52 Weeks – 52 Ways to Love Your (Wild) Self.” It will be filled with magic,  truth, doodles, shenanigans, recipes, wisdom…

… and love, of course, from me to you. It’s a gift for everyone on my mailing list, and it’s coming in late-August.

xo

Want to see what it looks like when my smile wells up from deep inside? Want to see my expression when I’m walking my talk, leaning into my fear, vibrating with possibility?

Ask me about my Hiatus.

I could go on and on. In fact I have, to the poor, unsuspecting friends and family who were curious (or just sweet) enough to ask me how “the break” was going. “It’s going great!” I’d exclaim. “It’s amazing! I’m digging so deep, getting so clear, generating so many new ideas… I’m a machine!” And then I’d tell them all the gory details, standing up on the furniture, re-enacting epiphanies, making bold proclamations…. except when I didn’t do that.

Here’s a truth: Hiatuses – especially the working-digging-searching kind – aren’t always pretty, and mine wasn’t all angels singing into my darkness either.

I spent the first week getting down and dirty, filling page after page of my notebook with answers to questions like, “What do you want to do with your life?” and “How can you be more of service?”  and “What does ‘making art’ mean to you?” Without the noise of social media or the pressure of deadlines, I was able to focus, sometimes uncomfortably, on what’s really happening inside me. As frustrated as I was by the fact that questions usually led to more questions rather than answers, I wrote head on, straight into my discomfort and fear. I wrote until my hand (or sometimes my brain) cramped, and then I walked the dog, or called someone I love, or sought solace on my yoga mat. I did that every day, writing through my hesitance and confusion until I began to feel clear, until the words began to form themselves into very personal, very certain, very rooted truths.

Here’s another truth: clarity is a magical thing. It grounds you even as it gives you flight, gathers you up even as it opens you to new possibilities.

By the end of the first week, new ideas were coming faster than I could write them down. Amorphous project plans found their shape, and things that had seemed too scary before suddenly felt like things I should try.  And as quickly as new ideas formed, old, outdated ideas of myself fell away, some of which I’d been holding onto despite the fact that they haven’t fit for years. Letting go of them was  freeing… and necessary… and unnerving.

Week two was productive. I updated my online bios, wrote a personal manifesto, made an editorial calendar, mapped out my in-progress and future projects. Having gotten clear finally on my purpose for each site, I made changes on both AHT and Zebra Sounds and planned posts through August. I wrote and edited works in progress and about half the time, I felt like I was in a groove – my inner and outer work aligned.

The other half the time, I felt utterly daunted and wanted to chuck all the planning and plotting, the embracing and shedding, and instead go learn how to be a barista at Starbucks.

As I write this, I’m sitting at the end of Week 2. The maybe-Starbucks musings come less often (though they still come). Most of the time, I feel excited about a future in which I am of service and making stuff – ART - at the intersection of fearlessness and love. That place is where I wrote The Love Essays, and the thought of staying (living, working) there is scary. And perfect. And daunting. And right. And I think maybe (for me at least) that’s how North is supposed to feel.

What about you? I’m curious if you’ve ever taken a digital hiatus. If you have, what happened? If you haven’t, do you think you will? The first day of my “unplug” was particularly noteworthy because I realized how often I check Twitter and Facebook. Which is all. The. Time. While things upload or download, in between tasks, when I’m stumped on a writing project, when I inhale, when I exhale…

Or I used to… hopefully, I won’t now. Do you struggle with addictive social media tendencies? (Do you have tips for getting past them?)

 ~~~~~~

Under the category of cool and hiatus-inspired…

• I’m creating a fun, funky, embrace-your-wild-self e-guide. It’s called “52 Weeks – 52 Ways to Love Yourself.” It will be filled with magic and truth and doodles and shenanigans and recipes and wisdom… and love, from me to you. It’s a gift for everyone on my mailing list, and it’s coming in late-August. I’m excited. I love giving you stuff.
• If you’re already on the mailing list, YAY! If not, sign up. My monthly emails are about to get a hiatus-inspired makeover – still heartfelt and personal, but also useful, fun, focused and sassy. (Sassy made me laugh. It’s like badass-lite.)
• Take a look around, I made some nifty changes all over A Human Thing. Most beautifully, I updated every one of the galleries!
• Have you checked out the Summer of Soul project lately? From San Francisco to Maine, from the sunlight caught in a dragonfly’s wings to the pulsing beat of an animated musical,  from beaches to forests to our own backyards… we are feeding our souls with astonishing beauty. Give yourself some love and wander through the submissions. Add your own link(s). Next week’s post will be bursting with Summer of Soul goodness.

~~~~~~

I’m SO honored (and pinch-myself-giddy) to be the guest poet on Bentlily!  GO SEE.

~~~~~~

Ever since writing my “Ode to hiking” post on Zebra Sounds, and then my “Beyond our very human work” post here, I’ve been thinking (and definitely daydreaming) about the places, activities and people that feed our souls. Yes, that’s right, I’ve been imagining what feeds your soul too (and in my imagination, some of you are more than a little crazy… I think you know who you are).

But then I got this great idea. Why imagine it? You can show me.

For the rest of July and on through August, this will be our portal, our gorgeous blogside view into each other’s lives. Here’s how it will work:

1. Live big and sweet and fearless and full.
2. Visit places you love, do stuff that stokes your inner fire, spend time with people who expand you.
3. Take pictures. (LOTS of pictures!)
4. Come back and use the “add your link” button below to post links to your photos.

The widget doesn’t allow the upload of a photo without an accompanying link, but you can link to your own blog posts with your pictures and soul-feeding stories. (I kind of love the idea of all of us blog hopping, getting inspired.) If you don’t have a blog, you can link to your photos on Flickr or Instagram or anywhere else they reside on the web (as long as they’re yours).

Take pictures of your vacation, your art, the paths you walk, your favorite room…. photograph your dogs and cats and garden, your cooking adventures, your best friend, your yoga mat, your favorite book…

take a picture of the place

– wherever it is –

where you feel most at home.

At the bottom of this post, you’ll see I started us off with three of my links – one post about my soulful connection to Arcata (from Millivers Travels), one about new beginnings (from A Month of Sundays), and one about checking in daily with your soul (from Huffington Post).

Now it’s your turn: I can’t wait to see what is feeding your souls this summer.

I’ll be on hiatus for the next two weeks. I’ll be writing and mapping and plotting my course for the rest of the year and beyond. There’s a lot of great stuff on the horizon! I can’t wait to share it with you, but in the meantime, post away! I’ll be popping in here daily to see what’s new. I can’t resist… and I have a feeling when you share what’s feeding your soul, it will feed mine. When I come back on July 23rd, I’ll have my own hiatus-inspired stuff to share with you.

Oh, and one more bit of awesome before I go…

I told Julia Fehrenbacher it was time to choose, from all the people who commented on our interview, a winner for her book. Because she’s sweet and couldn’t narrow it down to just one name on her own, she got her whole family involved, including the cat, who, after a complicated series of scientific steps, chose the dairy flavored cat treat, under which was a slip of paper her daughter, Marielle, had chosen from a basket of names minutes before. The winner of Julia’s book is Clare Flourish! I love everything about that story, but here’s one more reason I adore Julia. She couldn’t stand that there’d be only one winner, so she’s offering a 10 percent discount to anyone who orders On the Other Side of Fear by Wednesday, July 11th. The coupon code to get the discount is ontheothersideoffear. If you haven’t already ordered, go. Do it. You won’t be sorry. It’s truly, soulfully beautiful.

Okay, I’m off to map my future, but I’ll be back to see what you’re up to. Link away, my beauties.

Let our summer of soul begin!