Issue 04: parrots, world-building, and solstice synchronicities
Recent gems in my sensory world.
I’m excited to share another issue of Sensory: the mundane and mystical in everyday life where where I relish boredom, presence, and pleasure as sacred counsel to notice what’s right in front of me right now, today.
A few times a month, I’ll share things like:
sensorystack: short odes to what I’m hearing, seeing, tasting, smelling, or touching in my daily life
silly putty: a thought, idea, or feeling I’m stretching and playing with
POV: a mini humorous or nostalgic story, silly dream, or time capsule to innocence
loving on less: neurodivergent-friendly minimalism, sensory-friendly goods, simple gluten free recipes
I hope you enjoy this meditation, reprieve, and nostalgic space to explore being delightfully human.
Sensorystack
A stack of recent sensations.
Hearing & Seeing
The neighborhood parrot family is making the rounds—always in pairs. I could hear them squawking at midnight, and a few days later they finally camped out right outside my window for a few hours. I stealthily went out to observe them but joke’s on me because they weren’t camera shy at all.
Silly Putty
Thoughts, ideas, and feelings I’m stretching and playing with.
I’m revisiting and re-working some of my old poems. In one of my angsty-walking poems (strangely, this is common genre for me), I wrote:
I want to know the trees by name
not just their familiesI want to have inside jokes with the orange
cloudy skies before they get tucked into bed with their grey blankets
These days, this draft is on my mind. My neighborhood asks me to slow down and learn the names of the life that surrounds me.
One of my favorite things about poetry is that it asks for specificity. A bird becomes a warbler, a tree becomes a carrotwood. Poetry gets to be incessant about the curiosity I owe to nature—to urge and nudge onto the page not just moments, but entire worlds.
Of course, the beauty of a poetry-induced trance is that these google search fact excavations are not simply used and discarded. They become known, familiar. I cultivate the inner library to meet the world on a first name basis.
I become a tiny experts on tiny things to create entire worlds with the same words we all know.
One of my favorite things about Kyle is that he knows so many facts. What this really means is that he’s intrinsically curious, finds pleasure in precision and the journey to acquiring the specifics, and never runs out of questions.
A lot of my work these days is building the stamina to believe I get to be and become the vessel that pulls the strings. Meaning, I get to decide where the story goes. I get to exaggerate or pull back, repeat or withhold. Maybe sometimes, manipulating the story is even the most honest thing I can do.
Here’s a clip from another poem I’m writing about my relationship to truth-telling vs. storytelling:
I listen to stories to inspect for the truth / as if only what’s real can move me / as if a bouquet of lies doesn’t offer some other truth / as if truth wasn’t just one perspective in the audience of time
World-building is skill, and I believe it’s one of the most essential we can cultivate in our lifetimes.
Environment is one of our entry points into storytelling. Even the most mundane is worth attention and specificity. Environment is physical, sensory, personal, and communal. We are not alone in our environments, but how we experience our environment(s) is deeply personal.
These things are all on my mind all because the parrots chose to tease the nighthawk and the pocket mouse on the patio looked just like a storybook.
The world around us is desperate of our wonder. The smallest creatures give us entire worlds to jump into.
Notes on Synchronicity
When I started writing about the parrots, I heard them again. Before I could even finish writing this, I celebrated the solstice with a magical friend and met a human named Jungle who invited me to facilitate a meditation workshop in person. The theme will likely be world-building.
Just to recap: I started writing about parrots on a whim, got out of my way long enough to say something, and ended with a connection point to my art and community in the physical world.
Happy (stamina to world-build) Solstice.
You don’t need to know where this leads.
You only need to allow yourself to begin.
Thanks for reading this issue. I’d love to hear from you in the comments.
More for the body & soul
Buy my debut poetry collection Silent Sound: 44 Poems to Hear Your Soul
Buy My Book | Silent Sound: 44 Poems to Hear Your Soul You know silent sound by many other names: Intuition. Sense. Inner knowing. Soul. Creativity. Sensitivity. Love. Inspired by Strength, the eighth lesson in the tarot, Silent Sound: 44 Poems to Hear Your Soul spans five years of inner excavation. Divided into four sections (I. An Infusion of Grace, II. Instinctual Love, III. The Answer in the Question, IV. Root in this Body), these poems bring you inside what it really means to heal—lighting your path with grace, humor, and courage to hear your silent sound.
Body & Soul Retreat in La Jolla Shores, San Diego
I’m bringing ten artist-healers together for five days of soulful connection this September. The essence of this retreat is being in the liminal space—co-existing as human bodies and souls. There is no growth agenda or hardcore healing programming. The purpose is presence, play, connection to self and other(s)—simple things our inner children and teens savor.
I’m bringing in some of my favorite healers (acupuncture, sound healing, gentle movement) to tend to our bodies and facilitating daily playful meditation;
and I are preparing a simple menu of fresh and colorful meets send-me-the-recipe comfort food; and the retreat house is two blocks from the beach for “local’s summer” (aka the best time to be at the beach in San Diego).With a blend of solo, 1:1, and group connection, this retreat is spacious, creative, and a little nostalgic reset for the inner child/teen in each of us.