It’s just after 5am on the morning of my thirty first birthday and I was totally going to sleep in today. But that didn’t really work out. It’s amazing what habit will do to our intentions.

I’m in the habit of waking up at 5. All of the best times of my life, the times when I have felt the most alive, the most creatively expressed, the most Me, all had this thread weaving through…early mornings. I feel as though the world is mine right now. You’re all sleeping. And while that’s not true, those who are up and moving are doing so within their own world. The pace and texture of life lived in the bustle together doesn’t start yet. No one’s going to call me now. I don’t feel the pull of what I need to get done for anyone sneaking about at 5am. If you send me an email, you wouldn’t expect a response at this ‘ungodly hour’. Which, to me, makes this a Godly hour.  

I love beating the sun to rise as though I am claiming my moment in the suspension of time. No time. So this is my time to move in whatever way feels sweet and nourishing to me. I make tea slowly and find consciousness in downward dog. I say good morning to my spine and meditate or pray or write love letters to the great mystery and bow down and beg the muse to visit me. Then I come and meet the page. I’m inviting into my morning routine right now, but if you’ve read much of my writing, you’ve been invited into my morning over and over and over again. This is when it happens, and it’s SACRED to me.

And the best part of all of it is when it ends, but not because I ever want it to end. After I have woken up my body and my spirit, my imagination and my word…after I have waded about in the depth of connection to the varying aspects of myself…after I have, with great satisfaction, confronted my own resistance to writing that has taken my whole lifetime to overcome…7 am rolls in…my bedroom door bursts open, a four year old with a messy head and sleepy eyes bounds in with a clock flashing 7 and says “Ha ha! Seven O’clock, it’s morning time, a happy day!”

And the two hours that precedes this moment, helps to make this moment the best part of my day. When I have everything I need to allow my heart to burst open and wrap around that child. Whatever happens after that, I can deal with. And lucky for me, lately, what’s been happening after than has been nothing short of kick-ass.

It occurs to me, as I write this, and has been over this past month, that I’m on fucking fire. The place I’m in right now is the place I imagine being in when I think that I’ll arrive somewhere. I can feel sorrow tickling at me, since I know that this will change, that pain will sneak in and undesirable circumstances will take over and conflict and challenge will throw me off my centre. But that’s not happening in this moment.

Right now it’s sweet. And it’s my birthday. So happy birthday to me, I feel awesome.

In particular, I’m juiced about two things, writing and coaching.

My coaching practice is expanding in a way that is, on the one hand, rapid and surprising. But on the other, is so obvious that it would go this way because this is what I am meant to be doing. I can feel the impulse in this moment to be all cool about it, like it’s no big deal. But let’s get serious here for a minute. How many of us suffer over our vocation? How many of us trudge through our work trying to find the sweet spot, or any sweetness at all? I am so lit up and stoked about the work I have been doing with people, with the people I get to work with. How does one lay their nerdy enthusiasm down on a page in a way that everyone else can feel? Like this…

I can’t believe I get paid to do this. I can’t believe I get to work with people like this, people who are real and on their edge and leaning in and cracking open and aching for who they really are to come shining out on behalf of humanity. I get to work with these people. I get to help them be more them. I get to have conversations that are intimate and challenging and expansive– Every. Single. Day. This is so lined up with the deepest stirring of what I know I’m here for that it kind of blows my mind. So to all you beautiful souls that I’m working with right now, thanks for showing up, so that I can show up.

Speaking of showing up…with the month of May being my birth month, there’s something about having my birthday on the 31, on the last day, that makes the whole month feel like something precious as I’m building towards my new year. This month, I’ve produced and posted more writing than I have in a single month prior. This feels good. My soul likes this. She’s singing. (Better my soul than me, you don’t want to hear me sing, even my kid shushes me.)

So if you’ll hang out with me just a little longer, I’d like to share what’s happened in the world of the WORD.

There have been my posts here, which are catching all sorts of momentum and flying around through this interweb and that’s just cool. Then there’s this great magazine, Beams and Struts…I’m one of the core creators of the site with seven men who are a total blessing to work with. I’ve been doing more and more editing as well as we’ve now become a platform for emerging writers and thinkers and artists. Working with people to craft and get their ideas out there is such a gift.

This month on Beams and Struts, I’ve published Doing Your Work: Your life, Your Calling, Our World… This is a pretty deep inquiry into the complexities of doing what we feel called to do, uncovering what that is and navigating it in a fulfilling and useful way.

Then there’s Narcissism, A Coming Out Party… a look at our individual centred culture, some of the implications of this and a call to get straight about how self-involved we really are.

Every Sunday at Beams and Struts, we have Sacred Sundays. There’s a rotation here, not a single writer, but each post presses into the sacred in some form. This past Sunday I brought forth a meditation that I’ve been offering a few of my clients recently, What’s Holding You? A Meditation on Trust.

As if that’s not juicy enough for my word loving heart to roll around in, I was invited by the lovely women at Integral Chicks to be a monthly contributor. My first article was posted there yesterday, Integral Dude: On Being A Masculine Chick…exploring the realm of masculine/feminine energy and how it’s been tripping me up.

And then there’s The Daily Love. Mastin Kipp found me and asked me to contribute a weekly post. While these posts have already been published here, they’ve been being published every Thursday at The Daily Love and will continue to be. So far, these are them:

We Get It…You’re a Fraud…Now What?

Future Delusions For Comfort + Fierce Acceptance of What Is!

Inspiration: Harnessing Power or Heroin Hits?

So there it is. Thanks for being here. My work has no place without you, so thank you, thank you, thank you for giving it a home.

And for the record, while all of what I’m sharing here feels like rainbows and butterflies and waving a flag of hallelujah….you should know that I’m working my ass off. I’m earning it. And I’m tired. My right shoulder hasn’t been right lately and it’s impacting my practice. I feel overwhelmed sometimes and like I’m right at the edge of my capacity. Which feels good, and feels scary. I tell you this because I absolutely loath the selling of perfection and projected self-images that leave out the depth of truth. I want to let you in to the sheer joy of what it feels like to inhabit my life right now, and I want you to know that it’s still messy and painful and deeply human, like yours is. Glad to be here, in this thing called life, with all of you.