CURRENT MISSION I am in forward motion to discover what makes me want to get out of bed like a ship on fire. ABOUT ME I grew up in the country with my feet in the mud and the sun on my head. The sun and blue sky and things that grow are my favorite parts of this world. I love tea and spicy foods and art and history and smells and animals and people and silence. I am quiet when I need to be and talkative when I have a good story. I am calm but I get excited. I am introverted but I love getting to know new people. I am an artist but I love studying science and math and the way things work. I am a traveler and I love to be home. I am all of these things and also sometimes none of them. I am a series of flexible opposites that allows me to be balanced and open. There is no word for the common thing that makes me me. PHILOSOPHY I am neither young nor old and I am both experienced and fresh like a child. To continue to keep a freshness I am always challenging myself to step over and break the rules of who I am. A particularly good metaphor for this is tearing down your house- which I heard from a friend. I wrote about it and a sample is here: "I feel goodness starting from my heart streaming to my fingertips and into my hips and thighs and down to my toes, around my back and up my spine and the back of my head around to my hair line. I feel genuine and happy. Content. Confident. There are many things I still don't know. I haven't figured it all out. I am taking apart my house. Taking nails up, stacking the floor boards in a pile. Taking off the drywall and tearing out the insulation. The walls are now down to the two by fours. Taking out windows and making holes for new ones. Rearranging the walls, taking out the ceiling and putting it down on the floor. I am trying things out, experimenting with different arrangements. But tonight instead of crouching down in a ball in the middle of the mess feeling overwhelmed I am happy to be here. Its unnerving and strange sometimes to have things out of their normal order but now I feel okay about it. Good even. I cannot see the future and I don't need to. Right at this moment I am happy to be who I am – disorganized, conflicted, torn apart, groundless and free."