Category Archives: heart

Relating to your muses

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I’m loving this page by Antero Alli on relating to the muses. Whether you’re a creative, an artist, or a creative artist, you have a relationship with Muses.

The idea (and the experience) of “the Muse” and “the Muses” has vexed, haunted, and inspired the lives and works of artists, poets, musicians, book authors, painters, sculptors, and creatives for eons. Though many myths and concepts swirl around the enigmatic Muses archetype, nothing seems to accurately describe or explain the ineffable phenomena beyond its impact on the human vessels giving expression to its manifest creations.

I want to share what he wrote about the gifts of tragedy:

Around my fortieth birthday, in November 1992, the Muses struck me blind with a different kind of vision forcing a shift from theatre to cinema…, a process that continues to this day. This turning point followed the unexpected death of my second daughter — an unfathomable, devastating loss by any standards. As with many great losses, there sometimes come unexpected gifts. Through the grief and horror of losing my child came an unusual gift that kept on giving. A strange vision, a way of seeing The Tragic in life as the long sunset shadow cast by The Magic in life.  

I could not see that connection in my own life for many years, but I am aware of it now, of receiving gifts from tragedy.

I am not an “artist,” but I’ve been touched by muses, angels, spirits. My product isn’t a thing you can touch or hear or see. My product is my self, or, as Antero puts it,

The payoff is realizing my purpose.

Healing is my purpose, healing is my product, healing transforms the tragic into the magic. Healing is as much art as science. And it’s a mystery as to who is healed and who is healer at any given time.

Like Antero, to invite the muses back, I make this note to myself:

Without gratitude, I am fucked.

Click here to read Random Notes on the Muses Dialogue.

Leslie Kaminoff responds elegantly to yoga scandal

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Here’s an elegant response from yoga teacher/anatomist Leslie Kaminoff, whom I studied with in January, to the recent yoga scandal involving John Friend and Anusara Yoga.

I’ve watched the headlines about the exodus of senior teachers and the revelations about Friend’s flaws with a measure of detachment. The headlines say enough — no details are needed.

This is an old story that often happens when power goes to a leader’s head, who is usually male. It’s the story of the flawed guru, the untrustworthy leader, the downfall of the powerful. It’s an archetypal story about human nature and usually involves sex and/or money, and sometimes substance abuse, and always, trust, betrayal, and loss of reputation.

It doesn’t have to happen. People are people. Attraction happens…and it takes self-aware teachers who are mindful of others and themselves and have enough personal resources to draw on to keep the trust given them, to notice when it/they may be slipping, to maintain the integrity of their teaching program.

It is part of the challenge of taking that path. The teacher is also the teaching.

If you want to catch up on what happened, check out WellandGood‘s coverage.

Disclosure: I take an Anusara class each week, and I love it and my Anusara-inspired teacher who has worked so hard for years to understand and teach yoga well and keep us safe and growing.

In my opinion, the quality of the yoga being taught includes the integrity of the teacher as well as the skill and knowledge. JF, as the founder of Anusara Yoga, did not have had much influence on me except in the body of work he created, and my teacher, who took classes from him and other Anusara teachers.

Anusara is good yoga, and I hope Anusara will still stand as an offering in the yoga world.

I’ve been lucky to have had some skilled, righteous yoga teachers whom I have trusted.

My respect for Leslie Kaminoff only increases. He talks about the suffering that occurs when a group gathers around a teacher whose human frailties prevent him from living up to the task he has been trusted with. (Yes, it’s usually men, but men hold more positions of power than women. And…the women involved made choices too.)

He relates how his teacher, Desikachar, who created Viniyoga, then decided to dissolve it because he was uncomfortable with the idea of branding. He found certification (which includes some standardization) to be antithetical to the traditional teacher/student relationship found in Indian yoga.

Desikachar resisted every opportunity to become a guru. He based his interactions with his students on his faith that the students could come up with the answers for themselves. He allowed them to struggle instead of giving them easy answers.

Daily email inspirations

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I subscribe to several daily email services that enrich my well-being as I begin each day. I receive joy, encouragement, wonder, food for thought, and catalysts for expansion from these emails. I feel grateful for the people who thought these up and deliver day after day. It makes a difference.

For several years, I got a poem a day in my inbox from Panhala. That stopped a few months ago, and I don’t know why. Joe Riley did a great job of sharing some wonderful poems, and I hope he’s well. No one seems to know. I miss the poems. The link above is still a great repository of poems.

I also get quotes from Tricycle Daily Dharma about Buddhist practice. (Click the link, then the Your Daily Dharma Sign Up Now link to subscribe.) Here’s today’s quote:

Fear is not the Enemy
There are many ways to meditate on fear. One is to wait until it appears adventitiously. Another is to invite it in — when we send out invitations we can be a little better prepared for who shows up at the party. Perhaps for both methods of approach the first thing to bear in mind is that fear is not the enemy — it is nature’s protector; it only becomes troublesome when it oversteps its bounds. In order to deal with fear we must take a fundamentally noncontentious attitude toward it, so it’s not held as a problem, but as a visitor. Once we take this attitude, we can begin to work with fear. ~ Amaro Bhikkhu, “Inviting Fear”

Fear is a visitor to the guesthouse. Allow it in — it protects. Ask what it is protecting me from; ask what needs protection. It is only troublesome when it oversteps its bounds. Got it!

I get quotes from Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, the flawed but wise Tibetan Buddhist teacher, from Ocean of Dharma as well. Here’s the most recent:

THE THINKER. No one can stop or control your thought process or your thinking. You can think anything you want. But that doesn’t seem to be the point. The thinking process has to be directed into a certain approach. That does not mean that it should be in accord with certain dogma, philosophy, or concepts. Instead, one has to know the thinker itself. So we are back to square one, the thinker itself: who or what thinks, and what is the thought process?

Right now playing with how thoughts bubble into awareness, disappear, and new thoughts arise…the flowing mind, the full mind, the empty mind, the nature of mind to think.

The Universe (Mike Dooley) sends me a message of support, encouragement, humor, and expansion every day. I especially enjoy how playful The Universe often is. Playful has become one of my favorite energies.

What if every wrinkle, scar, or gray hair only made you more beautiful? What if every tear you’ve shed, mistake you’ve made, and challenge you’ve faced, only drew you closer to the light? And what if, MaryAnn, for every breath you’ve taken, every sentence you’ve spoken, and every path you’ve chosen, your fans in the unseen multiplied?

Well, I’d say it’s about time you found out.

Be proud, we are –
The Universe

Universe, I must be really beautiful and close to the light, with a multiplicity of unseen fans! Recently had an angel reading with Russell Forsyth, my first, and am feeling more aware of the angels around me than ever before.

Creative catalyst Lynn Scheurell sends me a Daily Catalyst quote each day. Here’s what Lynn sent today:

“God will not look you over for medals, degrees or diplomas, but for scars.” ~ Elbert Hubbard

Wow. Well, as my About Me page says, I’ve got ’em, scars. I do believe that life’s wounds can become spiritual currency and mistakes are for growth, so no matter what, you can’t lose.

The latest addition to my daily email habit is “EnneaThought for the Day,” a message for people of my Enneagram type, Five. Sometimes the messages are very inspiring, as today’s was:

Remember that at your best, you become an intrepid discoverer and explorer, broadly comprehending the world while penetrating it profoundly.

I’m really liking that description of the directions I move toward — broad comprehension and profound penetration. I enjoy using my mind and awareness in these ways.

What’s next for the Occupy movement, and where do you lie on the political spectrum?

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Occupy Austin’s encampment at City Hall has been evicted. Occupy Wall Street has a dwindling number of protesters due to the season in NYC. It seems that the movement is fizzling.

Or not. Maybe it’s simply regrouping to come back in another form. The issues certainly haven’t gone away.

I notice a little more attention being paid to the vocabulary of political candidates, especially one poignant observation that the two-word phrase missing from any Republican candidate’s speechifying are these two words: middle class.

Why isn’t more of this political season devoted to which candidates support/oppose Citizens United and campaign finance reform? Because if they don’t vocally oppose them, they are comfortable lining their pockets with corporate money and being part of the corruption that has overtaken our government.

The Occupy movement got lots of criticism for being unfocused, for not having good sound bites. If you’re still wondering what it was/is about, I came across this article summarizing the 10 clearest demands of the movement.

Number one? Too much money in politics.

If there was a specific piece of government action that was most derided (directly or indirectly) by OWS protestors, it was Citizens United v. FEC.  For a bunch of highly-educated justices, the Citizens United decision was staggering in its boneheadedness.  Long story short, the court ruled that corporations have the same free-speech rights as individuals, and basically turned on the biggest spigot of private money into politics in recent memory. Oh, and it also expanded the definition of Corporate Personhood to absurd new heights.

Unsurprisingly, people weren’t too happy about the fact that no matter how much they canvassed, voted, donated to political campaigns or argued on the internet, they can never match the millions that private companies can muster.  Bought politicians were unwanted before Citizens United, but afterwards it seemed blatant — like they weren’t even bothering to pretend anymore.  Many OWS protestors took to the streets because they feel like we are now living in a country with two classes of people: those without money and those who matter to politicians.  It’s so absurd because, as one anonymous commenter put it: “I’ll believe a corporation is a person when one is executed in Texas.”

If the 70% of the people who for years have believed that government is headed in the wrong direction could focus together and elect/support policymakers to overturn Citizens United and enact campaign finance reform, well, we the people will have taken our country back.

Is that not what you really want — government of the people, by the people, for the people? I do.

How do we get this done? It is daunting, but I cannot say it’s impossible. And I’m open to ideas.

Here’s one thing you can do: You can support, campaign, and vote for candidates who support these two policies, who make them their top priority, who can stand in the face of opposition, corruption, and greed. They’re out there. I know it.

We can make “where their campaign money comes from” a litmus test for candidates. Here’s an organization working on showing where the money really comes from.

I wonder how unbought candidates can gain a toehold in the media and get their message across to voters.  Wealthy interests will of course fund their opponents, who can buy ad time and image consultants and speech writers.

Facebook, Twitter, and door-to-door campaigning, maybe?

For this “revolution” to happen, it’s gonna have to be mostly grass-roots, which Occupy showed us could be done. The concept and phrase “the 99%” is not going away, and it has made a difference.

It’s just gonna take even more of a revolution in people’s minds, hearts, and resolve to make these changes.

Supporting a truly free press is important. This table ranks nations on democracy, free press, and corruption. The U.S. is still better off than most nations, and that needs to be said. But we are less democratic, free, and uncorrupt than we like to think.

Where do you want it to go from here?

A friend asked what you call a government that caters to corporate interests. I looked it up on Wikipedia (political systems): it’s mostly plutocracy (rule by wealth — corporate interests, Koch Bros.), and I see elements of oligarchy (rule by the few — who buy politicians) and theocracy (rule by “God” or “his” representatives — Christian right) influencing it.

There are some elements of fascism (rule by a leader) in the way people’s civil rights have been taken away in the name of counter-terrorism. And there is also some technocracy/plutocracy (rule by wealthy experts) in the way that Wall Street provides the government’s economic experts and directs economic policy.

So there you have it: we live in a pluto-oliga-theo-fasci-technocracy.

If you’re wondering where your politics lie on the spectrum, go to The Political Compass. (Thanks, my friend, for telling me about this.) You answer the questions to view a chart showing where your politics lie on the left-right, authoritarian-libertarian axes.

I’m a far left libertarian in my politics, more than radical than Gandhi or any candidate or party shown. This doesn’t surprise me, because I came of age in terms of political awareness and involvement in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

I was told back then that the FBI had a file on me for protesting Vietnam. In high school. In Stillwater, Oklahoma.

Remembering that, my eyes are rolling. I’m coming out of the closet about that. And I ain’t done yet.

Enneagram communication styles

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Did you know that some people never ask questions?

Some people are very talented at telling stories and anecdotes.

Some people are fabulous at flirting, raising it to an art form and practicing it on everyone they meet.

There are those who crack really funny one-liners and hilarious nonsequiturs.

Some are good with groups. Some prefer long, one-on-one conversations.

Some talk compulsively. Some experience silence with another as a kind of communion.

And sometimes there are holes in conversations, gaps in communication styles.

Sometimes anecdotes seem random, disconnected from what came before, and I find myself wondering (usually later) where the other person might have been going with that or what brought it up in the first place.

Sometimes I’ve put words in others’ mouths instead of letting them tell it their way.

And interestingly, sometimes when I am getting to know someone, a part of them that I’ve never met before will enter the conversation. It can be startling to me, while the part is so ingrained in them they’re not even aware of it.

I find communication — and people — fascinating.

I don’t read minds. I do what I call fake mind reading, trying to understand other people’s motivations, hidden emotions, directions, and so on. Yep, I make up stories about people and why they are the way they are. I’m working on letting go of that desire. It’s not that easy, I tell you! I am addicted to “understanding”.

To refresh myself and share with you, I’m consulting one of my favorite books on the Enneagram, The Enneagram of Liberation: From Fixation to Freedom, by Eli Jaxon-Bear. (Eli is Gangaji’s husband, if you didn’t know, and an expert on Enneagram as a spiritual growth tool.)

Below I’ve provided a brief description of each Enneagram type’s talking style. You may recognize yourself, or more likely, someone you know well will come to mind. Those who know you well may be able to tell you what your most characteristic communication style is.

Please keep in mind that these are generalizations! Twos do not give advice all the time!

Ones’ talking style is preaching, lecturing, sermonizing.

Two: Giving advice.

Three: Propaganda, selling, “the bottom line”.

Four: Lamentation, gossip, responsive to others’ moods.

Five: Systematic discussions (like this blog post! ha ha! ; ) ), investigations, silence.

Six: Setting limits, needing to know the rules, questioning authority.

Seven: Telling stories, charming others, improvisation.

Eight: Laying trips, challenging, pushing buttons.

Nine: Telling a saga or long story, putting listeners into trance.

If you are interested in using the Enneagram as a tool for personal growth, I recommend getting a copy of this book.

Six great things about making mistakes

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For most of my life, I have been afraid of making mistakes. Even the “MBTI Prayers” mentions my type as being perfectionistic:

INFJ: Lord, please help me not to be so perfectionistic! (Did I spell that correctly?)

Yes, I am a good speller, and I am also a fear-based Enneagram type, a Five, somewhat evolved but still a Five.

Fear! Fear! Fear! Boo!

I can poke fun at myself now, but used to, I couldn’t. I was a good child, didn’t make waves, did well in school, was serious and well-behaved, was friendly and funny with my peers — but was isolated, not close to anyone emotionally. I had a lot of fears and doubts and no one to talk to. My fears and doubts kept me from talking to anyone! I feared they wouldn’t understand me and would ridicule me, and I doubted anyone could do or say anything helpful to me. So I didn’t reach out very far. Adolescence was particularly lonely. I was afraid of making mistakes.

My fear of making mistakes meant being tense before I even started something!

Wow. When I think about that now, I can see how I made myself miserable. I robbed myself of the joy of failing, trying again, and doing better. I didn’t understand the learning curve.

By the way, here’s a great video about the learning curve. Watch this baby learn about her body and what she can do, and notice how complex rolling over is, and how she learns to do it:

 

I’m not sure exactly when this happened, but I recently realized some Very Important truths in life that changed my mind about making mistakes:

  • Mistakes are inevitable. Every single person is different from me in values, history, habits, expectations, thought processes, communication styles, emotional make-up, priorities, and so much more. I can’t read minds. Also, I filter things out that I should have paid attention to, had I only known or really understood. I forget, get distracted, am preoccupied, and so on. As the politicians say, mistakes are made.
  • You grow more from making mistakes than you do from perfection. When you do something or see something done perfectly, you and others can appreciate the beauty, elegance, and righteousness of it. Perfection lets us appreciate that someone has reached an ideal. You can reflect on what made it perfect, respect the luck or skill that went into it, and then you store that memory and move on to what’s next.

When you make a mistake, well, there are all kinds of opportunities to develop yourself and grow as a human being:

  1. You get to reflect on your behavior and remember what you were thinking/feeling and (with hindsight) what you were distorting/deleting/generalizing about that led to your mistake. So you know more about your subjective experience and your behavior, and you understand yourself better.
  2. By understanding yourself better, you have an opportunity to develop compassion for yourself. If you can understand how making the mistake really happened, moment by moment, you can have mercy on yourself, be tender toward yourself for your limitations, forgive yourself.
  3. If you can forgive yourself, you can extend that understanding and mercy to other humans who make mistakes (and of course to all sentient beings). Next time you realize you’ve made a mistake, after you’ve held yourself accountable and developed compassion for yourself, think of someone whom you hold a grudge against or judgment about because they made a mistake with you or someone you care about. You can now understand that they had limitations and were doing the best they could at the time. Just like you. You can extend your tenderness and compassion to them. We all live in the human condition.
  4. You have an opportunity to understand how you could have done it better. With hindsight, what could you have done differently that could have resulted in a better outcome? Of course, there’s no way of really knowing what the actual different outcome might be because there are always innumerable variables beyond our control, but you can at least imagine moving in a different and healthier direction, and it can still be soothing to your heart and mind to retroactively right your wrong in your imagination.
  5. You now hold the key to actually doing it better next time. Imagine a similar situation in the future, and see yourself not making that mistake.
  6. Depending on the severity of the mistake and the person you made it with, you may have an opportunity to make amends and reconnect in a healthier way. You may want to talk about what happened, listen, apologize, reset boundaries, and/or make a peace offering. Who knows? They may have something important to tell you. You invite them to understand you better and perhaps to understand themselves (or what they project) better through seeing how you misperceived them. And mostly, you get to spend time valuing each other’s humanity, and that’s a simply awesome way to spend time with people.

There’s still a part of me that doesn’t want to make mistakes, because there’s pain involved. I don’t want to cause anyone pain or suffering. But I can’t let that paralyze me. Intent counts, and it’s more complex than that. This is where the Serenity Prayer comes in:

Mistakes are perhaps the best education available for the heart and the mind when it comes to gaining skill with life. They teach you how to be heart-full and mind-full.

With the attitude that mistakes are inevitable and there for me to learn from, and the recognition that I have learned from them and will continue learning from them, life feels more playful, free, promising, and joyful. I’m moving in the direction of Big Mind and Big Heart. And how much better can it get than that?

What you can do to be happy

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This article, 12 Things Happy People Do Differently, lists things you can start doing today to experience more happiness in your life.

Besides the usual suspects like gratitude, optimism, and forgiveness, some tips were unexpected, like this one:

Avoid over-thinking and social comparison. – Comparing yourself to someone else can be poisonous.  If we’re somehow ‘better’ than the person that we’re comparing ourselves to, it gives us an unhealthy sense of superiority.  Our ego inflates – KABOOM – our inner Kanye West comes out!  If we’re ‘worse’ than the person that we’re comparing ourselves to, we usually discredit the hard work that we’ve done and dismiss all the progress that we’ve made.  What I’ve found is that the majority of the time this type of social comparison doesn’t stem from a healthy place.  If you feel called to compare yourself to something, compare yourself to an earlier version of yourself.

I also liked what it said about how just watching kindness in action increases serotonin in those witnessing it as well as in the person performing the kind act. By being kind, not only do you feel better, it’s contagious! 

Nurture social relationships. – The happiest people on the planet are the ones who have deep, meaningful relationships.  Did you know studies show that people’s mortality rates are DOUBLED when they’re lonely?  WHOA!  There’s a warm fuzzy feeling that comes from having an active circle of good friends who you can share your experiences with.  We feel connected and a part of something more meaningful than our lonesome existence.

Thanks to friend Shelley Seale for posting this link on Twitter.

I’ve touched 100 naked people

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I realized today after carefully counting that I’ve touched 100 naked people in the last 7 months. That probably makes you wonder if I’m a sex worker.

I’m not. I’ve been a student of massage therapy since June 2011, and I’ve worked on my fellow students and teachers, many of my friends and family, and clients at the student clinic.

I’ve worked on many of these people several times. When I complete just 10 more massages in the intern clinic, I’ll have completed the requirements for graduation and will have given about 150 massages.

Every person I’ve touched has gotten my full attention, presence, and skill. Even that one person who happened to be my fourth recipient in one day, when it crossed my mind that I felt tired and cranky — I pulled myself out of that mindset, got a second wind, and gave them my best.

A naked and vulnerable human on the table in front of me is a divine gift with whom I hold a sacred contract to give my best.

Every person I’ve massaged has contributed immensely to the intelligence in my hands, heart, instincts, and awareness.

Most people are fairly silent when receiving massage, their attention on their bodies or breath or my hands, I presume, or perhaps their grocery list. I don’t read minds, so I don’t really know.

Silence helps me work.

Some people stay mentally alert and present the entire time. Some sink quickly or slowly into a state of deep relaxation, that state of no effort where the body is being breathed, the mind is loose and free, and imagery bubbles up out of darkness. Some fall asleep. Their snoring tells me.

Sometimes I go into a trance with you, and those are the best massages.

I watch and listen to you breathing. I feel your pulses. I see your scars — the ones on your skin and the emotional ones like the chronically rounded shoulders, that one tight hip, the rigidity in your torso. Sometimes your bodies tell me stories, of weight gained or lost, an old injury with a long recovery, a recent injury complete with road rash, surgery, playing a sport, working out regularly, working at a computer.

No one — so far — has had a perfect body. I belief that’s likely a myth created by airbrushing.

I’ve learned that nearly everyone has some tension in their shoulders — in the upper trapezius muscle, to be specific.

The low back is also a popular place for tension and pain to hang out. It’s amazing that by working on your rectus abdominis (the abdomen’s six-pack), the front and back of your body become balanced and your low back pain goes away.

I’ve learned that due to handedness, no one’s upper trapezius muscles are exactly symmetrical.

Some people think they’re relaxed, but when I pick up their arm or leg, they have a hard time letting go of control, giving me the full weight.

Some people want more pressure, some less. I’ve gained strength in my arms and hands and can now deliver more consistent firm pressure.

I’ve worked on fat people, skinny people, people with chronic health problems, healthy people, a lot of people stressed out from office work (I’ve posted before about too much sitting), an age range from 11 to 85, people with tight bodies and loose bodies, and one pregnant woman.

All precious.

When I worked on my daughter, memories of her infancy arose, and I realized that everyone who gets naked on my table is just this:

an old baby
no longer tiny or quite so helpless
nonetheless innocent and vulnerable like a newborn

I’ve learned that some people are not very knowledgeable about their own bodies, misnaming their body parts, unaware of tensions, oblivious to the postural or movement habits that cause them pain — that they’ve unconsciously created for themselves.

Your body tells the truth. It can’t lie.

Why aren’t body awareness and anatomy taught at home and in schools?

There are certain massage strokes that tend to get sighs of relief and moans of pleasure. I’ve developed an opening routine that opens.

Receiving massage is all about you becoming more alive and your nervous system waking up, your body shedding tension and moving into relaxation and pleasure, not to mention improving your circulation, breath, brainwaves, mood, compassion, immunity, energy flow, digestion, posture, alignment, balance, movement, and presence.

In many ways, allowing me to massage you is like letting me to take your armor off — the armor you probably weren’t aware of putting on until you started feeling tense or in pain.

Everyone can benefit from taking their time getting up afterwards, not rushing off in their cars to get somewhere else, not re-engaging their left brains too quickly.

Yes, leave your armor off for a while and stay for a cup of tea with me.

Leslie Kaminoff reviews “The Science of Yoga: The Risks and the Rewards”

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This book, The Science of Yoga, written by a New York Times science writer, was at the heart of the recent controversy about yoga injuring people as posited in a New York Times article.

Leslie Kaminoff has posted two video responses to the article. (See my previous post to view them.)

This third video is his response to the book, which he recommends that all yogis read — and then gives a mixed review.

Correlation is not causation, as Kaminoff says. If you cite how many people are injured doing yoga, but fail to compare it to injuries from any other physical activity, there’s no perspective — and that’s a journalistic failure. Broad apparently does not come across as a credible science writer because of this in Kaminoff’s eyes, which is disillusioning considering the NY Times’ “gray lady” status among newspapers, but putting forth questionable data supports his agenda — and sells books.

Of course, journalism has been in the fire for years. Maybe Fox News is the equivalent of Bikram.

Watch the video to find out what Broad’s agenda is. You might be surprised that he picks on individuals (especially one whose Ph.D. came from an institution that ironically Broad finds not credible, and a small organization, the International Association of Yoga Therapists).

Yoga helps by magnitudes more people than it injures. Just make sure you get a good teacher who knows anatomy, and keep in mind that it’s your responsibility to be aware of your body and to set your limits to protect yourself.

30,000 views! Thanks, readers!

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Today my blog passed a major milestone. It’s received over 30,000 views! That’s since late December 2009, so it’s taken a little more than two years.

When I started blogging, I did not know where I would go with it. I just knew I liked writing and sharing useful information that helped people live better, healthier lives, and blogging was a way to do it.

Persistence pays off. A lot of people start blogs and then abandon them. I don’t believe more than a week has passed since I started it without me posting something, and I usually make several posts each week. I hope I’ve gotten better.

I really want to thank you for reading it. Not every post will be everyone’s cup of tea, of course, but as I can see from the stats and subscriptions, more people are finding it to be of value.

I like that. Thanks, y’all!