Authenticity. Embodiment. Relatedness.

I’ve decided to update my website in 2020 after a huge life transition. I left my Executive Director job after almost seven years to pursue more rest, regeneration, renewal, and spaciousness in my life.

This much needed time comes after several cycles of burnout and a deep need for integration during my middle years.

This used to be my website header:

Radical responsibility meant “bringing the consequences of my existence into my everyday lived experiences,” as my friend Chris Farmer says. It meant building my housing, growing my food, providing my own utility systems, taking care of my body, learning to manage my internal reality and my feelings, communicating with others in a manner free of blame. It came out of a desire to minimize my impact on the rest of the human and more-than-human world. It can be best summed up by this beautiful image by Daniel Garcia entitled My Own Personal Slaves. This image so accurately depicts how privileged Americans use “energy slaves,” human slaves, and environmental slaves to live lives of comfort and ease. I wanted to change that dynamic in my own life. It was a worthy, righteous, and ambitious endeavor.

Now in midlife, I realize that I can’t change these global systems and I nearly exhausted myself trying. I still take as much responsibility for my life as I can, try my best to limit my engagement and support of the extractive economies, and contribute to the building of the world I want to see. Yet I have also come to realize that there are other tools needed to build wisdom. Authenticity, Embodiment, Pleasure, Integrity, Community, and Relatedness are added to the list, along with Responsibility.