With these hands
I pray for strength, hope, faith
and Love.
Everything these hands do is a prayer. I do my best to offer more than I ask.
Violent us. US. When someone says Peace and Honest discussion is better than war and killing, and gets mocked for those words? Threatened. Diminished? What am I, what are my hands expected to do?
Pray.
And then get to work. Make the art, make the Art, speak my heart and encourage others on the path they travel.
I Shall Not Fear. I Shall Not Fear. I Shall Not Fear.
Neither shall I sow it.
Went to get the stitches in my mouth removed and there’s infection in my soft tissue, swelling and inflammation, so I’m back on antibiotics. And soup.
Also the old stitches were removed and I have fresh new ones. Unexpectedly . Taking time to heal and study.
Two Weeks In, Still Here
What Survival Teaches
Two weeks is an interesting threshold. It is long enough to feel the weight of what you’ve committed to, and short enough that no one is applauding yet. The early excitement has thinned. The novelty has worn off. What remains is something quieter, and far more useful.
You are still here.
That may not feel like much, especially if you had imagined something more dramatic by now. A breakthrough. A shift. A visible sign that all of this effort is leading somewhere meaningful. Instead, what you often find at the two week mark is a kind of steady resistance. Not overwhelming, not catastrophic, just present. A low hum of friction that follows you to the desk, to the rehearsal space, to the moment before you begin.
This is where many people leave. Not loudly, not with a declaration, but with a quiet permission to drift. They miss a day, then another. They tell themselves they will return when they feel clearer, more inspired, more ready. They mistake the absence of ease for the absence of alignment.
But if you are still here, something else is happening.
Survival, in this context, is not about gritting your teeth and forcing your way through misery. It is about staying in relationship with the work long enough to see it more honestly. The first week is often projection. You bring your ideas, your ambitions, your imagined version of yourself to the table. The second week begins to introduce reality. The work pushes back, gently but consistently, and asks a different question.
Are you willing to meet me as I am, not as you wish me to be?
For public creatives, for speakers, for performers, this moment matters more than the beginning. Anyone can start. Starting is often a form of escape, a way to feel momentum without yet encountering truth. Staying, especially when the work becomes ordinary, is where identity begins to take shape.
You start to notice things. How you approach the work when you are tired. How you negotiate with yourself when something feels inconvenient. How quickly you reach for distraction, and how rarely it actually satisfies. These are not failures. They are information. They are the texture of your practice.
Embodiment lives here.
It is not in the grand gesture or the perfectly delivered performance. It is in the repetition of showing up when the conditions are unremarkable. It is in the decision to begin again, without ceremony, without waiting for the right mood. Over time, this builds something far more durable than motivation. It builds familiarity. The work stops being something you visit and becomes something you inhabit.
There is a subtle shift that begins to occur when you stay past the point of convenience. The question changes from “Do I feel like doing this?” to “What does the work require of me today?” That is a different posture. It is less centered on preference and more centered on participation. You are no longer waiting to be carried. You are learning how to carry.
And in that, something steadier emerges. Not excitement, but trust. Not intensity, but continuity. You begin to understand that depth is not created through bursts of effort, but through the quiet accumulation of days like this one.
Two weeks in, the work is no longer theoretical. It has a shape. It has a cost. It has asked something of you, and you have answered, even if imperfectly. That matters more than it appears to.
If you are still here, take a moment to recognize what that actually means. You have crossed from intention into practice. You have moved from imagining the work to participating in it. You have begun.
Not finished, not mastered, not transformed in any visible way, but begun in the only way that counts. Through repetition. Through presence. Through a willingness to remain.
Stay here a little longer.
There is more to see, more to understand, and more of yourself that will reveal itself if you do. And if you find yourself wanting a steadier way to continue, a way that honors both the craft and the life around it, you already know where to find me.
