Late Arrival

Winter’s air brushes my lungs anew

I’ve been absent—away. I’ve been absent from myself more than anything, I just didn’t know it. It wasn’t until I finally, truly got sober over the last two weeks that the unseen film that had been lingering between my inner world and the reality we cohabitate lifted. Like a sunrise over open horizon a curtain drew back and I felt my first breath again. It pangs me to write that because I don’t want to feel that everything I had been living prior wasn’t real. My feelings were just, my confusion and desperation tangible, my seeking evident, and my pain primeval. But, there was a casing, a limit to my capacity to truly engage—an iceberg on the surface that stopped up any attempt at diving depths.

I stopped sending out this newsletter in late November while I was traveling in Japan—swept up in a flurry of emotions, downloads, love, and addiction. I still wrote, I always write, but I didn’t send. I couldn’t bring myself to polish or edit, to craft something for someone else. I felt constrained by my own efforts/markers of professionalism—what I felt I owed you based on the script I set out to enact.

I started this “newsletter” as a way to share the experiences and teachings I was gathering from my path dedicated to the somatic experience of life lived intentionally. I wanted to write, grow, promote myself, and inspire. But the task itself left me opposing my own stipulations. I eventually realized that just because that’s seemingly how everyone else in this field works and promotes themselves it just doesn’t compute with my system. So I’m freeing myself from these original constraints to write more openly, sporadically, and yes, freely.

What can you expect moving forward then? Raw, unedited journal entries, polished thought pieces (probably not), reflections on landscape and our relation to it, amateur poetic prose attempting to yoke itself to the meditative field, which my somatic non-dual tantra teacher simply refers to as, THE field. Maybe a recorded meditation or a video update here and there. (Improper grammar and punctuation for sure). Let’s see what inspires and where this heart that has emerged from a layer of dampened dust leads.

If you signed up really wanting those weekly newsletters, somatic practices, and journal prompts I’m sorry for the change around. Honestly, I never knew if anyone even watched those or took to journaling themselves so it was always a bit of mystery if what I was putting in was worth anything to anyone. But then again, I’m learning to value my efforts for my own sake instead of the externally validated. If you’re still desiring that end of things though shoot me a message and let’s delve in.

I write this now from a dimly lit dining-room table surrounded by eight empty chairs in a house that isn’t mine surrounded by winter’s frozen blanket and a still evening air. Seems like good a time as any for a late arrival and a fresh start.

With heart,

Leo