The day began hesitantly. First, the hot water run in the bathtub for the washing of hair and stretching of limbs was intended. The screen addiction’s blue light trance caught my mind. After going through the email and seeing possibilities; chaotic offers of peace; warnings that this class or video or lesson would become cannibalistic and eat itself out of existence any moment; the lost losers wailing in the valley of abandonment and those indecipherable messages from some long dead language from another planet I am by now too tired to try to decipher. I delete, delete, delete. Next, I must remove the dead bodies from the field and leave my trash as pristine as I found it.

I push back the cleaning, laundry and prep for new incoming guests in order to get into the tub before the thought of a hot bath had totally dissolved.

I wash my hair while listening to Jason Stephenson soothe affirmation towards me like a lover with his warm breath. “I am blossoming,” I repeat out loud as I soap up my head and dunk it beneath the water line. “I am at peace in the world,” I repeat as I smooth the conditioner through my increasingly longer locks. “I am supported by the universe,” I chant towards the bathroom ceiling as I douse my head with repeatedly used water.

After the ritual of cleansing, I go to the bed to breathe along with Wim Hoff. Almost immediately I feel prickles of energy along my flesh and inside my body. I feel like my cells are drinking tiny cappuccino cups of delicious caffeine liquid. I push against my capacity for breath and expand it more and more. I float in a sea of thoughts, plans, visions, voices, and intentions. All of the shards of half-seen things break off from their mooring and I watch them fly past me as I release them with my breath, through the ceiling into the field of what is.

After dressing, I dress the bed and address the new cat.

I walk out onto the lawn barefoot to feel the day all over me from foot to face. I say, “Hello birdies.” I always say, ” Hello birdies, ” when they sing. It seems only right.

The rituals of morning end up being the rituals of day because I have detached myself from time now. I justify it to my ego by reminding that cranky critic that I started my first job at 8. Now, 70 years later I chose to not be chained at the ankles by time. I am barefoot on the lawn. The birds sing. What will happen will happen.

Finally, I understand I do not need to have an opinion about everything that happens. Finally, I understand I do not need to have an opinion about every blade of grass, every leaf, and every passing being on my sidewalk.

This. This is now. My hair is washed, the room is ready for the next guest. I feel at home in myself.