Restoring “The House for Human Flourishing”

She’s grey inside no longer! The interior remodel of the main house went off wonderfully-without-a-hitch, completed in less than a month.

June was one of the busier months of my life: co-running a business, contracting half a dozen tradesmen, and heading out on a 1,800-mile road trip to best man a wedding and interview two personal heroes. Holy moly! I “bit off more than I could chew” and somehow chewed it.

I returned home three days ago, both exhausted and ringing with life, to this empty, blank canvas of a place, now radiant with warmth and character. Terracotta tile floors, alabaster walls, and wood tones have worked wonders on what was previously a totallygrey interior. I often find myself smiling and sometimes even dancing in disbelief as I move throughout the space.

The house also inherited its first piece of furniture, and deep meaning, in the form of two gorgeous bookshelves (pictured above), after family-friend, longtime-neighbor, and renowned sports photographer Rob Schumacher unexpectedly passed. Growing up, Rob lived five houses up the street and regularly photographed the Olympics, Super Bowls, and major events the world-round as long as I can remember. In 2013, he helped bring major publicity to my brother and I’s cross-country bicycle ride fundraiser, driving from Phoenix to Oregon to spend three days capturing us reaching the Pacific Ocean. Rob was an inspiration, warm friend, and relished in a few of the best days of my brother and I’s lives with us. Warm sentiments arise with every glance at those bookshelves.

ROAD TRIP:

A Wedding & Sunsets

Perhaps the truest to Ed’s quote atop this Collected Goodness I have ever been, I showed up for three comfort-zone-expanding experiences on a road trip from Phoenix to Northern California on the tail-end of June: best-manning my great friend and biz partner’s wedding, and taking my first two swings at a podcast I’ve imagined for years and plan to launch this fall, where I watch sunsets with people who deeply inspire me.

I had butterflies for all three of these experiences, and a few bouts of “who-am-I-too’s.” But as John Wayne said, “courage is being scared to death, and saddling up anyway,” and saddle up I did. And as I leapt into each long-anticipated moment, to my utter delight, I 3/3 found my favorite Terrence McKenna line (fully quoted in The Shamanic Dance in the Waterfall article below) a shining, glorious, and yet-again-revealed truth:

“This is how magic is done. By hurling yourself into the abyss and discovering it's a feather bed.”

In the wake of the road trip, I am alight with said magic’s work. Want to walk a new path, learn a skill, live a dream, fall in love, or expand your human-ableness? The way is as simple as it is difficult: show up and give yourself over to the new experience.

This is how magic is done.

PODCAST EPISODE:

Space Hex: The Curse of Restlessness in Worldviews of Perpetual Escape

“Space Hex” is a play on SpaceX. Hot dang, it shook me. I’ve long had the love for space exploration and contemplating the cosmos, but this podcast episode just kicked-the-feet-out-from-under our cultural fixation on a future far far away for me. It lays bare our unique and desperate cultural desire to escape the present — the miracle of being here and now on our blue-green ball of life. And it made me stop and wonder, “what more could I ask for than to participate in the infinitely-kaleidoscoping, inconceivable-mystery of this eternal moment?”

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THROWBACK:

The Shamanic Dance in the Waterfall

June was a wild month of repeated “leaps into the abyss” for me. One was a tremendous two-day hang and sunset interview of Vagabonding author and pioneer, Ed Buryn. I thought to include the serendipitous story of our first meeting, five years ago, in an old, crowded diner in Nevada City, CA.

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