Hello, and welcome to the Rhythm of Expression podcast. This episode is a bit off the cuff so the normal intro is not in play the episode today is Coming Back Through the Fire. It is this kind of a concept that I came up with after thinking about the idea of you know, becoming the Phoenix and being engulfed by the fire and then emerging from the ashes. But sometimes there's a bit more beyond that. And so I had this thought come to mind and it was coming back through the fire because sometimes we have things that happen to us that are so absolutely profound that we just don't work the same we don't think the same we don't. It we have become so fundamentally changed at our very core that that analogy may not capture everything completely. There is a baptism by fire when you're approaching life from a new perspective on whatever subject and I had had a podcast episode recorded a while back about returning to calm. And I was such, or rather I was so far from that. Like in the moment when I recorded it, I was there, I was. I had found my peace, you know, in that moment, but it didn't carry through for very long and so I didn't actually even get back to editing that episode because it felt so inauthentic. I just could not find my way to work on a piece that was talking about returning to calm when I wasn't there. And so I just had to step back for a bit and get to a point where I am calm and even and it may not be where I want to be. But today I am very tech minimal. I have my phone that's pretty much it. No fancy microphone, no fancy recorder, no laptop to do my editing. This is just all as it is off the cuff but I really felt compelled to record it as I lay there trying to take a nap. It can be so very difficult sometimes to see anything beyond that particular moment, to have the ability to do much more than put one foot in front of the other and take the next breath, when we have these things that hit us so deeply. And I don't often find comfort in the monotony of like a regular day to day job. But I really just needed to pull back from everything else and just be in those moments. And do those things that were so mundane that they at least present, blah, excuse me...at least provided some consistency and some comfort of familiarity. And sometimes we need those things when the rug has been pulled out from under us. We absolutely need those things then.  Having a vacation smack dab in the middle of this past work week was amazing and beautiful and so restorative. It really just gave me time and space away from more recent things that I've been processing and working through and trying to find my way through. You have to go through them and feel every pang. So now I'm outside and you're hearing the locusts and some of the birds and maybe the wind and we are just low tech and in the moment watching the grasses wave and the butterflies and listening to the pool filter. It is hot. Super, super, super hot today, even in the shade, but everything is alive and vibrant. That's just what it's all about, isn't it? So apologies for the long break in my postings again because I keep thinking that I'm getting to a point where I'm good and I'm through the thing and I'm ready to you know just move forward, carry on whatever and then you have something that reminds you and sometimes those reminders are everywhere and they take your breath away and they take you to another place in time. So you got to shake things up. Do something different just go somewhere else for a few days. That might help wake you back up might help you breathe a little easier. might make you move a little easier. And might make you help to dream again alright might help you to dream again I have no idea how this recording is going to turn out. So we shall see. But coming back through the fire even when you feel like you've risen yet again. You have to learn how to walk again. How to breathe again. How to dream again.