Practice creates Freedom

fuck perfection!!!!

May 09, 2025

HAPPY TAURUS SEASON FRIENDS

I love Taurus season. This time, ruled by Venus, is filled with endings and beginnings, celebrations and celebratory dinners. People graduate, flowers bloom, and 3 of my favorite holidays take place in this 4 week period : Earth day, mother’s day, and 4/20

A pure silver rattle that my brother was gifted as a baby. As a taurus, I’m delighted by beautiful objects like this

However, this season has been filled with grief.

There is no food left in Gaza, and the footage emerging shows families literally starving to death. Tension is building between India and Pakistan, and our government continues to kidnap people off the street.

Genocide and state based violence are not new phenomenons of the world, maybe it is a gift that things have become so visible and sharp that they are difficult to ignore.

Either way, the freedom and sweetness I felt in past Taurus seasons is here, and accompanied by the weight of bearing witness to cruelty that I desperately want to stop.

I find myself reflecting on the act of having a practice or practicing

Taurusness if very much about work over time, enduring, and culminative efforts, after all.

a combination of two of my favorite practice…making flower medicine and decorating my fridge :)

a beloved friend once told me, Practice isn’t about perfection it’s about freedom

this definition really clicked for me.

There is something about doing something over and over again so that it becomes embedded in the body and the mind is no longer required to participate.

With practice, the spirit is free to embody something deeper than the physical coordination to complete the action, the spirit is free to fly with the intention, the feeling, the meaning…or at least in theory

As my old clarinet teacher told me, there is such a thing as bad practice. We can do something over and over again incorrectly, and instead of finding deeper presence we can end up in auto pilot, our spirit glazed over and elsewhere, but maybe thats also not a bad thing.

Api has practiced rest to the point of expertise which is how he can nap in such elegant positions!

I wonder how I might practice liberation during these times of oppression

It feels so easy to abandon my practices during this time, or to even reduce their importance internally. Am I disrespecting the suffering by picking honeysuckle or having my friends over for slow cooked lamb dinner?

I have to remind myself that it is the opposite. We definetly have to resist by doing more than just expierencing pleasure, and our pleasure gets to be the foundation of our resistance.

Our choice to embrace life slowly, sensually, erotically is powerful

I’m often tempted to abandon relationship building in the midst of crisis

Some of my favorite practices are not only about how I turn towards myself, but how I turn towards others.

The inclination to send a text, to call a friend while driving home, those are healthy impulses. But as the heat turns up, it can be easy to give into overwhelm and stop reaching out.

That is why cultivating an intentional practice can be powerful. The commitment anchors us, and when we honor the commitment it has the power to pivot us back towards our intentions and values, even as we feel overwhelmed and pulled in different directions by the chaos of life

my homie and her pup! They truly anchor and complete each other.

I am sharing all of this because yesterday I went live with my friend Evolve to talk about the class we are putting on next week (If you are a paid subscriber and want to come check out the last newsletter for a 25% off coupon code)

The conversation led me to reflect deeper on why I want to teach the class. In short, this newsletter is a loving practice of reflection. Having an audience supports me in reflecting and publishing, and it is also a reliable practice of connection.

The fact that I can impulsively open up a little tab on my computer and pour out my heart and over 400 people will read it blows my mind, especially considering that my newsletter started with like 20 people.

The newsletter connects me to so many of you all, and I feel so grateful that even as the tower crumbles around us, I can connect with you all so profoundly.

so grateful for this anchor to sit with me as the tower crumbles : )

As this empire contorts and begins to consume itself, I take comfort knowing that we can still find each other through words, thoughts, bodies, and hands.

It is understandable if you find yourself isolated, alone, and spiraling, and that is also why I encourage you to create some practices of connection with people you love. Set up standing calls, or even your own newsletter.

These small practices keep us connected as the larger forces at work attempt to seperate us.