mantra.

“Don’t worry about what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive and do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” 
 ~Howard Thurman

give.

Judgments that constrain your giving are the verydemons that are keeping you from receiving.
--Martha Beck

poetry.

On one of my last nights in D.C. eating a home prepared dinner on a d.c. rooftop with a view of the capital, over wine, laughs, pork and stunning views of the monuments, three amigos gathered to celebrate friendship and life.

Instead of prayer before dinner, a couple of poems by my sweet as pie and thoughtful as heck amigo Daniel:

The Journey 

One day you finally knew

what you had to do, and began,

thought the voices around you

kept shouting

their bad advice –

though the whole house

began to tremble

and you felt the old tug

at your ankles.

“Mend my life!”

each voice cried.

But you didn’t stop.

You knew what you had to do,

though the wind pried

with its stiff fingers

at the very foundations,

though their melancholy

was terrible.

it was already late

enough, and a wild night,

and the road full of fallen

branches and stones.

But little by little,

as you left their voices behind,

the stars began to burn

through the sheets of clouds,

and there was a new voice

which you slowly

recognized as your own,

that kept you company

as you strode deeper and deeper

into the world,

determined to do

the only thing you could do –

determined to save the only life you could save

-By Mary Oliver

privileged

“The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.”C.G. Jung

After months and months of feeling lost in an ocean of "transition" and uncertainty, and just when I thought this ebb may never turn to flow... all my deep rooted wishes after peace corps have been answered. And they went a little something like this:

I want to live abroad again
I want to have a job that allows me to use my degree
I want to advance my spanish to a professional level
I want to have enough money to pay my bills
I want to live humbly
I want to love on my friends and family
I want to spend most of my time doing something that contributes
I want to play the violin again
I want to wake up each day early and with excitement

I want to lean into my blessings and pay them forward
as much and as often as possible.

I want to always follow my bliss and trust that the universe will conspire to help me achieve it.

loving this song right now.