Tag: being different

It started with a crown. Many crowns, really.

The first excerpt I read today (via the DeepStash app, which I highly recommend) was the first crown in my day.

It’s worth remembering that it is often the small steps, not the giant leaps, that bring about the most lasting change. EIIR (Queen Elizabeth II)

Then, Sir Citrico (my tiny citrus seedling) didn’t die.

Let me back up—one morning, while making my lemon water, I dropped a seed onto the floor. On a whim, or maybe something more, I rinsed it off, wrapped it in a paper towel, and tucked it into a plastic bag. I heard my spirit say, “Put it on top of the cabinet, and wait for further instruction.”

So I did.

As I do 100% of the time in this phase of my life, I followed my Higher Self’s nudge without question. A couple of weeks later, when I heard, “Time to check,” I wasn’t even surprised to find it had sprouted—delicate white roots and a tiny green stem, alive and reaching. You would’ve thought I’d witnessed a full-blown miracle by the way I squeaked and rushed to find J, beaming like a proud citrus parent. And yet, beneath the flurry of 3D excitement, my soul just sat in quiet, humble gratitude, watching me feel real joy again for the first time since Master Roshi died.

That was a while back, and at first, he did really well. I tucked him into a tiny clay pot with some Bacto and a pinch of cactus soil—whatever I had on hand. I added a little sand, too, worried about drainage. I put him on the bookcase in front of my bedroom window, and he grew a couple of inches and seemed content.

But a week or so ago, he fell over.

I thought maybe I’d let him get too dry. I watered him, hoping he’d rally, but he couldn’t seem to stand back up. His green began to dull and shift in a way that didn’t feel right. He looked pitiful. Still, I kept doing what I’d been doing. He was struggling—but he was still here—so, I waited.

This morning as I gave him his Friday morning drink, I noticed he’d grown again. His green was vibrant, no longer sickly. So I listened—again—to my spirit (guided, I’m sure, by both Master Roshi and my Mama Kay) and reached up to the top of the bookcase to see what I might find for support, and what do you think my fingers landed on?

A key charm I used to wear on a necklace, topped with a tiny crown. I’d forgotten I even had it—much less that it was right there, waiting. “Onward,” I thought, with a quiet half smile on my face.

Something about that silly, sweet “coincidence,” and the act of pressing the charm key-down into Sir Citrico’s pot to give him a bit of love and support with his morning drink, woke something up in me again. A flicker of the old rhythm. That feeling from the days when creating wasn’t about productivity. It was about presence.

And then I shared it with J.

I texted him a couple of photos and made a little joke about crowns—as one does when the coincidences start stacking. Just as I hit send, a message from him came through: a photo of speckled eggs in his dusty palm, found in the straw trailer at work with no nest in sight.

We exchanged condolences for the eggs—the unborn and likely gone babies inside them. I said I wished we still had our incubator, even though it was probably too late anyway. He laughed about the crowns in emojis. Sir Citrico brought us both back to center again just by existing and being okay.

From there, the conversation shifted—creeks and mushrooms and foliage we hope to stumble across on our next hike, wild clay we’d already foraged, the phoenix we’d raise from the ashes of our old fire pit when we turned it into a makeshift open kiln.

We started remembering. Talking about past walks in the woods, daydreaming about future ones. Backyard projects we could try this weekend (weather permitting, praying hands). The kind of inspiration that makes your hands ache to touch the earth again.

And as the brief moment—it couldn’t have been more than five minutes—passed and he returned to work, I sat there realizing, “we’re both already halfway back.”

It’s been a really long decade. I’ve been in and out of creative energy and back and forth with sharing here. This post, though, feels like the first in a new (but old) rhythm. A return to the backyard (including the woods, and nearby nature preserves) adventures that once were my lifeblood: gathering moss, bones, and stones. Saving driftwood. Watching the forest change one quiet degree at a time. Building with what we already have.

As I sat down with my tablet to list supplies—starting with Borax, because these ants are officially on notice—I got a notification that my old blog domain had been released. After all this time, I was finally able to repurchase Catacosmosis.com for $13 instead of the $100 redemption fee. I’d let it lapse, along with so many other things, after Master Roshi died. I tapped the notification and smiled… and what do you think I saw at the top of the page? A tiny little crown. A purple one, no less—my favorite color.

I’ve already been collecting ideas for upcoming posts: photoblogs, step-by-step tutorials on processing wild clay, how we’ll turn our backyard fire pit into a makeshift open air kiln, color palettes and Mextures formulas for documenting spring and summer through the lens of new eyes.

So maybe—finally—I’m stepping into writing here regularly again.

Writing about art and energy. About the sacred mundane. About the projects that call to our hands and our hearts in equal measure. There’s no rush. No master plan. Just the inspiration. Just the slowly forming Spotify playlist:

🌙 aetheria ✨.

There’s only the ambient existence of time, and the understanding that it isn’t meant to be wasted on stuckness, resistance, or the fear of letting go of what’s already passed. This time, there’s true, deep healing.

It’s been a hell of a decade, but for the past several months, there’s been this eerie, chosen quiet. There’s been the grace of being able to go inward—to hermit, soul-search, and sit with God and the trees and the spirits of the ones who never really left. They show up in their magical love notes from the Earth’s skin…where moss carpets memory, fairies stir the wind, and the invisible speaks in vibrations.

They’ve fed me the songs on that playlist—music for the sacred unseen. Music for stone circles, forest floors, phoenixes rising from the dust—and the soft, golden ash of everything you thought you’d lost.

And what’s left, for me?

Just a garden of small, sacred yeses.

And, the joy of going on the adventure again—this time with my boys, and our dogs. No one who needs 24/7 caregiving—no one who is sick, no one who is dying. No one who “needs” so much of me. Theres just the invisible magic of memory, presence, and the quiet, sovereign path we’ve chosen for this chapter. The one that’s ours… even if it’s not what the world calls “normal.”

Because artists aren’t like other people.

That’s one of the truths my spirit keeps showing me—especially now. Creating things from what’s around me—from cameras and acrylics and powder pigments to binders and water and dirt, to the words in my head and the Divine in my heart—it’s not just what I do. It’s who I am. For years, I’ve said I didn’t want much in the way of what money could buy, and the last few months of solitude have shown me how true that really is.

“Your life is not normal.”

I’ve heard that sentence more than once lately. And while I usually walk in confidence—especially since everyone died—this one time recently, the words landed harder than they should have. They made me buckle, just a little. Maybe it was because of who they came from. Maybe it was just the audacity, considering the lifestyle they’ve chosen for themselves (which is also very different to “most people”). Either way, it stung—not because it was true, but because it carried judgment where there should have been understanding.

I know many of you have heard similar things, and ask yourself similar things at times, this like, “How do you explain your life to people who’ve only ever lived in the traditional one?” People like you and me—we wrestle with questions like that.

“My friends think I’ve lost it after selling the big house…”

That was something Master Roshi and I talked about often, back when he chose road retirement in his RV. We didn’t question it. We just joined him. Because we were the same. And that’s a big part of why I miss him so deeply.

Then there’s, “I’m just so unhappy. How do you shift your life and still feel supported?”

After everyone died, and I stopped vibing with anyone around me, I chose solitude. That question rang loud in my head for a while, too. But through that, I found my Self again, and was able to answer that one for myself as I remembered how little I really needed from anyone else—that I was my own validation—and that my relationship with God was enough.

The truth? I don’t have all the answers. They’ll look different for every person, every season. But here’s what I do know:

Normality is subjective. It’s based on one’s reality. And yes—my life isn’t normal to a lot of people. But there’s a growing community on this planet made up of people who also live a little differently. There is a growing population who challenge the finger that points and says, “That’s not normal.”

Those people? They each have stories. They each face their own challenges. They each carry the wisdom that grows when you live a life you chose.

That community is rising. Connecting. Becoming its own new normal. I think the real divide only happens when we compare each other’s “normal.” But if we allow for difference—and embrace it—then we create space for all of us to live the lives that suit us best.

That means celebrating all kinds of normal:

The traditional homes. The 9-to-5s. The “starving artists,” the couch-surfing writers, the stay-at-home moms, the dirtbag van-lifers, the families living out of buses and backpacks and intuition.

There’s room for all of it. There’s room for all of us.

My two cents?

The best thing we can do is make peace with the chaos in our own minds. Keep being exactly as different as we need to be to build the lives we want to live. Let the judgment come. Let the questions linger. Let it all teach and grow us. Embrace it.

And then…

Let them watch, regardless of judgments, as we settle in—and thrive—in our own unique ways.

Maybe that’s the whole point.

The comment I made earlier—about how we’re already halfway back—has been echoing in my spirit ever since. At the time, it felt like a casual observation. But now, as I finish writing this, I see it for what it was: a recognition.

It was a realization that somewhere between the grief and the stillness, the long walks and quiet days, the moss and music and small, sacred yeses—I had already crossed the threshold. Without fanfare. Without fireworks. Just… step by step.

The world didn’t shift all at once. I did. And now, standing here in the soft light of this new chapter, I think about Queen Elizabeth II’s words again:

It’s worth remembering that it is often the small steps, not the giant leaps, that bring about the most lasting change.

She was right.

The change was never just one big choice. It was every tiny act of trust. Every time I listened to Hid and my higher self, no matter what it “cost” me. Every time I kept going when no one else could see what I was building.

And somehow, without even realizing it, I arrived.