Okay, I do think I got all my photos back…some of them are corrupted, but most of them seem fine. I’m making three backup copies, and I’m now carrying about 30 TB of storage just for safety.

I want everyone who reads this to know that my internal voice is that of a 50-year-old New York lesbian who’s also a Jew. It’s the most critical comedy show in my head just about all the time. I think I sometimes might come off as a 50-year-old New York lesbian who’s also a Jew, but I think if you see me in person, I mostly come off a little softer.

God carry me

I do this thing where, when everything’s going well, I run off. If I find I’m successful in something, or just feel successful, I start to be ready for something else. Ready to have to try harder, climb a new mountain. It’s why I need good challenge, the right kind of challenge. So I don’t get bored, and I stay. I think we should all be somewhere where we’re challenged.

But my task is to stay the course. We’ve charted a course. God is calling us into the unknown, led by only the things we love: beauty, freedom, Spirit. We have some things here supporting us, we have next steps, we have a purpose bigger than ever, and challenging things we’re learning. It’s like just focus, focus, focus. We have good stuff here, don’t run off just yet.

I feel it like an itch. It’s like ooo, look at that, or what else we could be doing. I think it’s actually one of my addictions. It’s this drive for higher levels of dopamine, because the highs of this new path have petered out, as they always will, and the baseline normal levels of dopamine start to feel like a clinical depression (I’m doing fine, but I get itchy).

Andrew Huberman (I honestly love his podcast) talked about this. Addiction is a chronic disease of dopamine dysregulation. You’re producing dopamine all the time. It’s like a slow drip. But when you get something that spikes it, going back to your normal level truly can feel like a depression. You get hooked on that higher level and start to seek it out.

The speaker, Dr. Anna Lembke, talked about how addicts typically relapse when they stop consciously attending to the pattern. Essentially, they fall back asleep, and when they do, they often go back to the addictive pattern. The entire episode circled “consciousness “ without ever using the term.

I think it’s exactly what happens to me with new projects, new work, newness. I LOVE newness. I love seeing or experiencing something for the first time. I’m okay being a beginner. I love the feeling of possibility and potential. So much so that I can sabotage my long-term needs, desires, and sometimes responsibilities. Even me using the term “love” in this context shows me I have an addiction to it. That’s not love.

So it becomes a conscious practice for me to ground, remember what I’m grateful for (what I have right now and what I’m doing), and then to just focus.

Biblically and spiritually, I take it as external forces wanting to take me off my path, the path God gave me to walk, where truly things are unknown right now. The more we go into the unknown in His name, with His guidance and in His trust, we are walking the path of His will. My legs, connecting to heart, following what is beautiful and free, vulnerable and unknown. I’m asking God to carry me more than ever.

Fans, fans, fans

I’ve been making daily. It’s awesome. Whether it’s taking photos or working on these fans. I’ve been crafting them slowly, by hand, with wood and rocks from the Yellowstone. With leather and turkey feathers from Colorado. With bone from the ground and fabric from the grandmas.

Each one is made with a lot of intention. Each one of them both a sculpture and medicine. They're tools for clearing, for calling in Spirit, for listening. I use mine in prayers, during ceremonies, and in healing work.

These fans are part of a lineage that wasn’t carried by people of my skin color. Today, I walk the Sweet Sundance medicine path, a Native American spiritual tradition grounded in reverence for the land, the ancestors, and the sacredness of all life. Building fans is one of the ways I listen, pray, and participate in that lineage, offering breath, smoke, and beauty to the altar of the everyday.

I’ve added many things that are my own. Bullet casings I found in the woods, silk string from my beading practice, agate some boys were selling at the farmers market, and small red Latin crosses. I walk with Jesus always, not as a symbol of religion, but to be reminded to be a being of deep love and healing. The red cross is a devotional mark. It calls him into the space with me. It’s a way I bridge the traditions I carry: one rooted in the land, the other in the heart of Christ. These fans are made to live in both spaces.

Whether you use one for prayer, for saging, for altar work, or just to sit with beauty, I hope they become what they’ve been for me: a way back into communion.

I’m getting a whole lot of them ready. If you’re subscribed here, you’ll be the first to know when they go live.

That’s all for today.

With Love,
Val