JUST A PRETTY FACE 2025

PART 1

Now that I'm a river

Each year I buy a fresh notebook and almost always fill it just as the year ends; mostly wisps of thoughts and ideas to use later, for projects, for living, plots & schemes, self-talk & journaling, and lists of things.

Among the first entries in 2025 is To impress the subconscious.

For 2025, the intention set was alignment.

MIND BODY SPIRIT TEETH

Mentally + emotionally move to a new neighborhood

Fear and resistance can feel like paying the bills; like maintenance. A bit of rebellion is necessary to outgrow the comfort of exhaustion from control. And resilience and friendliness to the unknown.

Control is a tricky beast. You want executive influence on your life, but with no space allowed for magic the magic just doesn't happen. And seeing the magic in the world is a gift of insight you receive for getting over yourself. Otherwise you're stuck forcing it; which can look and feel really good for a while.

Control is maintenance, letting go invites growth.

Alignment is synthesis: Enough self-control to act faithfully, with no control of the outcome. Because to dream is not to ask that the dream comes true—it's to ask how we must change and align ourselves to live the dream.

And the Universe obliges invariably in unexpected twists and synchronicities.

DREAM OMELLETTE

Strive for quality not perfection

For the last couple of years I have wanted to write a book. That's a major aspect of the dream.

I started several times and sometimes got encouraged by how much farther I'd get. I even built a website to hold myself accountable, just to really fucking go for it; so it's announced, it's happening; I mean it.

But what it actually meant was not at all what I had thought.

What it meant was facing fears I had avoided and limitations I had already set against myself.

It meant exposure to characteristics of myself that I had covered up with perfectionism, and smelling the raw need and desperation to be validated; the practiced passiveness of needing to be.

Passivity cannot afford to fulfill big dreams.

Creatively, practicing from a deluge of desire, of want, starts with giving yourself permission to give yourself what you need. Actively. Which you have to know and understand and not ignore to succeed.

You, and child-you who never stopped needing what you needed in childhood, and seeks to satisfy those needs behind the scenes using the same demonstrated and outdated patterns and strategies, which you can ignore and consciously or subconsciously maintain and allow to repeat, or with awarenesss and observation change to align with the requirements of your dream.

Patterns are meant to repeat. That's why they're patterns. And why we have sunrises. And why breaking patterns is destructive and painful.

Going for a dream and allowing magic starts with facing every pattern and belief that holds you back. Which I did not have any sense of when I decided to write a novel.

A dream starts with breaking patterns to create space.

You can't make your dream omelette without breaking a few patterns.

With love and intention you can orchestrate your own undoing and rebirth.

Live from the future desired, live for the unseen. Not for the needs and neglect of the past. You can code the present with the emotional qualities of the dream. A practice of faith that can make the suffering of change joyful.

What from outside may appear to be madness is faith. A patient and purposeful stroke in the river.

JOY IN THE HORROR

It's never what you think so don't think too hard

The book I am writing is not the book I had started. Because at the start the story was about me. And to tell the story I dream of telling the story must be from me. I had to get over myself.

I cannot control how the dream unfolds.

I can only continue to answer the call; or not.

A journey into a dream requires a resilience to the unknown and unseen.

What is certain is that I don't know all that's between me and the dream.

So I don't overthink it. Instead invite the feeling of the dream fulfilled into the present. And keep my shit together best I can. And stay curious.

Practice your personal alchemy of converting need into desire; desperation into faith.

And finding joy in the horror of becoming.

Eventually the sun rises after a prolonged night. And the magic starts to happen on its own.

NOW THAT I'M A RIVER

«Do the delicate dance that only you know
Take my hand. Through the wreckage we'll go
I can't stop now that I've started and I won't
wait for someone else's charge
...Now that I'm a river (not coming away at the seams)
Now that I'm a river
I'm nearly completely free»
– Charles Watson

PART 2 ⇀

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