Postcards from My Soul

First things first! Every time I mention discontinuing these emails and going to a straight blog format I’m met with resistance.  So I’ll continue doing both.  But as always, if you don’t want to receive these please just let me know! xo Upcoming Events: Pop-up Holiday Art and Jewelry  Saturday November 30th 12-6 At my house!  Let me know if you need the address.  If you can’t make it and are interested in jewelry or art let me know and I’ll come to you.  :)  I’ll have some old stock deeply discounted! If money is an issue, let’s discuss options. Northwest Made Holiday Market Saturday December 7th 10-4 at Mercy Corp Northwest 43 SW Naito Parkway  https://www.mercycorps.org/events/northwest-made-holiday-market . I’m taking a break today from making jewelry, for the above events, to send a little note your way.  Basically to remind you(and me) that everything we see on facebook isn’t the entire story.  That goes for people’s seemingly perfect lives to the ads for fat burning capsu

Do you like Meat loaf? Not the kind you might put ketchup on, but the band.  My favorite Meat Loaf song since childhood has been Paradise by the Dashboard Lights .  I remember calling the radio station on a corded phone from the kitchen to request it.  I was so nervous I could hardly speak, thankfully the woman at the station understood what I was trying to spit out in my shaking, quiet 7 year old voice.  But that’s an entirely different topic.   Recently, I realized many people in my life don't know why I stopped eating meat.  I mean, a few people do, I have told people the reasons when they’ve asked.  If you even know I’ve stopped eating meat it’s probably because we’ve gone to dinner or you’ve invited me over and since I don’t like to go hungry I like to make sure before I go that there are options or I plan ahead and eat before I leave my house.   Full disclosure: I do still eat fish and most of the time feel bad about it.  My goal would be to eventually give up fish and dairy,

As most of you know I returned from Black Rock City aka Burning Man last week covered in dust and dreams.  Not the kind of dreams that come from getting a good nights sleep, that’s for sure, but the kind of dreams that come from being with wonderful people, new friends, strangers and amazing sites and awe causing experiences, as well as some good ol’ WTF? Moments!    Every year that I head to the desert,  I go with no expectations or as few as I can possibly convince my little lizard brain to have.  It’s the same attitude I try to have when I travel. An openness to what the Universe, or in this case, the Playa sees fit.  It’s interesting what lessons and gifts are available or given to us whether we want them or not.  :)  This year was great, don’t get me wrong, but it was also the most stressful that I’ve had.  Some of which I can account for and some of the stress was unexpected and I’m still trying to figure out from whence it came.  The unknown stressor surfaced upon arrival into t

I know, I know, I'm super slow in getting this story out.  It's not an intentional cliffhanger, although I've been accused of such things.  I have, however, been back almost two months now so I'm taking a break from Burning Man prep to write this.  Ok, I may also be letting henna absorb into my grey roots.  This is the 3rd or 4th time I've decided to let me grey hair take over and this was the longest and most grey I've ever had but I just couldn't help myself.  Plus I already had it on hand. (Note to reader - skip next paragraph if you don't care about my dirty hair) Since we are talking about hair, or I am, let's discuss the no-poo movement.  As in no shampoo.  I washed my hair on May 13th before we left and only brought baking soda instead of shampoo.  Since the RV wasn't trip ready when we decided to take it, the water tank wasn't full so we were conserving water.  It was also cold in Flagstaff so I wasn't super inclined to wash m

Tuesday May 14  The Dalles, Oregon Les Schwab parking lot We woke up at 7:30am, getting roughly 4 hours of sleep.  The short version  is that it took them until 12:30pm to confirm that it was a broken axle. The longer version includes offloading the camper onto the side of the building and a bunch of impatient waiting.  Then the scramble began.  Charlie was able to locate a used rear end/axle thinger in Tacoma.  Charlie’s friend, who if he left Rainier right that second, could get there before 5pm to get it and bring it to us.  He also located a recommended mobile mechanic who could install it the next day.  This is also the short version of the trip to Tacoma to get the part.  Our timeline to getting to Flagstaff was getting tighter.  We wanted to arrive Thursday night but had to be there Friday morning by 9 for classes we had signed up for.  It’s an approximate 20 hour drive to Flagstaff from The Dalles.   With nothing more for us to do at the Les Schwab parking lot we wal

Recap: The 50th bday trip destination plans were as follows: Flagstaff, Joshua Tree, and Baja California (that’s in mexico for those of you that graduated from Glide High and don’t know geography haha)  Those were our top 3 goals.  If other things ended up in the trip so be it, but we had tickets for an event in Flagstaff, I was adamant about finally making it to Joshua Tree National Park and we were planning on spending most of the rest of our 6 weeks in Baja California, north and south. May 13th 2019 5pm departure  We left approximately 4 days and 8 hours later than planned.  Let’s be clear, I was ready.  We were about to hit The Dalles when I started obsessing about the *free almond/coconut milk coupons burning a hole in my preverbal pocket .  I was afraid that we’d get out of Oregon and the stores wouldn’t have the almond/coconut milk brand I like for my tea. I felt stupid asking to stop when we’d only been on the road 1.5 hours.  But an obsession to save $2.50 AND g

I’m sitting, slightly stranded, in The Dalles, Oregon at the Les Schwab parking lot for the second full day in a row on what is to be a 6 week road trip with Baja being the destination for my (our, as you’ll remember my current boyfriend and I share the exact same birthday) 50th (gasp!!!) birthday.  But before I get into that story I wanted to say a few things about my last trip to India.  Better late than never... India.  Describing India using words is like describing the memory of the dream you had that’s slowly fading in the waking hours of morning.  Those feelings and the visions are still in your head but when you start put it to words they start to fade and the person who’s listening can’t quite catch the essence.  It’s somehow nostalgic, familiar yet new, beautiful even when painfully hideous,  peaceful, chaotic, welcoming, off putting and always present and always alive. I’ve written similarly before about this Indian phenomenon.  How India, works with the the univers

Short version written March 1st at the Shanghai airport.  Short version - Shanghai has been upgraded to the worlds worst airport and a great teacher of patience and non-entitlement.  Which is saying a lot if you’ve spent much time at LAX.   My atm card doesn't work here to get Chinese cash, my credit card wouldn't work at anyplace but Starbucks(had to break my pride and policy of not going to Starbucks when there are local places to support) and everything here has meat in it(rice, noodles, veggie soup all made with animal stock), and the internet is terrible. I needed a visitor visa just to stay at a hotel in airport.  Oh and there are very few USB charging places and I don't have an adapter for China.   There are helpful people in Terminal 2 who handing out power packs with with a cord, but it turned out they are selling and renting them, so I handed it back.  The wifi at the airport is incredibly slow, remember dial up?  This is worse. The data included in my plan is equ

Ricardo at PDX  For plane travel to India, I wore leggings and a medium length black indian style tunic with grey sneakers.  On the way back I started out with a long skirt and top, as I was starting my return from Goa through Dehli, then to Shanghai.  I changed clothes and showered during my 16 hour layover in Shanghia.  My plan was to go into the city but I was too tired and the weather was cold and rainy. Shanghia has knocked LAX out of first place for the world worst airport. I have a Shanghai edition planned. In my small roller carry-on: Ricardo 1 Folding yoga mat (see below) 2 Yoga block (also new from a second hand store. I left it in the wrapper so it stays clean) 3 Skirts - one reversible 2 Tank Tops -one black, one white 6 Pants - one yoga(for Kalari in the red dirt) two baggy harem style, one long wide legged, one cotton loose) 9 Shirts - Mostly cotton solid colors 1 Night dress thinger 3 Bras 16 Underware A few toiletries and miscellaneous travel item

Happy all the Holidays! Which ever ones you celebrate.  I’m partial to Solstice.  :) Time since my return from my last trip has really gone quickly and still not much alone time to recover but I’m starting to feel a bit more like myself.  It’s a hard balance for this introvert because I really do also love my friends and family.   Almost three years ago I went to my 1st three week long yoga retreat in Mazunte, Mexico.  I didn’t know anyone, or the teachers or the style of yoga.  I needed a break in my visiting schedule from Julio and wanted to deepen my yoga practice.  You may remember the emails around that time. Or not.  Hahaha I met a couple of people who I’m still friends, almost with my current yoga/meditation teacher who led most of the retreats I’ve gone to since then.  One of the people I met was a Russian dude (whose name is not Boris) that had recently arrived in the area.  He was at the yoga school one day, attempting to selling his pottery during our lunch break.