Dear Private Person:

I see you. More than that, I know you.

I know how you were raised, because it’s the same way I was raised:

Try not to be a burden on anyone, don’t take up too much space. Don’t be loud, or obnoxious, or needy. Don’t seek to be the center of attention. Keep a low profile, help out when you can, and most importantly, keep private things private.

I know how you think, too, because I used to think this way:

I can handle this; it’s no big deal. I’m probably exaggerating anyway, and I don’t want…

So, what did you do over quarantine? I studied the art of alchemical transformation!

Ever since then, I’ve been wanting to write a series of essays detailing what I learned and connecting it to my process and understanding. I finally finished it!

When you think about alchemy, you might think about the science of attempting to turn lead to gold. And it is that.

But alchemy is also a metaphor for the process of our spiritual growth and development. In the words of Carl Jung:

“The alchemical operations were real, only this reality was not physical but psychological.”

Thank you…

Alchemical Transformation Series

This piece is the second in a three-part series of articles. Read Part-1 here (To Face the Dragon is to Seize Life Itself and Part-2 here (The Sorting Stage of Transformation: Heroes Need Not Apply)

A Pregnancy; A Birth

One day, several years after the birth of my second daughter, I began to feel nauseated. My appetite was shifting and erratic. And, my period was late. I knew these were the tell-tale signs of pregnancy.

But, I didn’t even need a pregnancy test to know that I was not pregnant with another human being. I knew I was pregnant with my new self.

For…

A solo entrepreneur is a unique kind of individual.

To be successful as a solo entrepreneur, you have to be both innovative and detail-oriented. You must be both a visionary and a grunt-worker. You have to keep one eye looking toward the future and one on your Quickbooks account at all times.

So much for relying on StrengthsFinders to settle into a job that highlights your top strengths — you have to embody all of them.

My husband and I often study each other’s work styles with a combination of confusion, envy, and curiosity. He has worked in the corporate…

“And the dandelion does not stop growing, because it is told it is a weed. The dandelion does not care what others see. It says, “One day, they’ll be making wishes upon me.”

~B. Atkinson

When I was in elementary school, I used to pick dandelions for my mom on my way home from school.

I loved those little beautiful flowers, all bunched up together in my hands.

My mom would pull down a drinking glass, fill it with water, set the dandelions carefully inside, and proudly display them on the windowsill over the kitchen sink.

One day, I heard…

I can feel her, the Wild Woman, coming more and more alive within me with each passing day.

She is not a part of me as much as I am a part of her.

She epitomizes collective female grief that has been buried deep for convention’s sake. Grief that got neglected because, at some point, she was told she had to “put herself together.”

She embodies collective female anger for rights and dignity stripped away or never given. Anger for our children who are hurt and used and exploited. …

If there’s one thing I’ve learned through the “skin” of a writer, it’s how to give into and trust the creative process and its ebbs and flows.

Creativity is not something that can be controlled or directed. It can’t be summoned. It can only be opened to.

I think of creativity like courting: we need to remain open, aware, and ready to move when it invites us to dinner. Like this, from Elizabeth Gilbert, best known for her book, “Eat, Pray, Love”:

“…ideas spend eternity swirling around us, searching for available and willing human partners. …

Microcosm of the Macrocosm

“I don’t know why, but I’m just so tired these days,” my husband said as the American 2020 election approached.

I looked at him cross-eyed. “You are part of the collective,” I reminded him. “You are feeling the nation’s stress, perhaps the world’s, in your body. How could you not feel tired? Do you think you are somehow immune from feeling the events occurring in our world?”

If only I’d had a soapbox handy, I might’ve continued.

I might’ve talked about how we all feel the exhaustion of animals forced to evacuate their homes when wildfires spread. Or, how we…