About

"Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end." ~ Seneca

For most of my life, I have always done the right thing, the right way, with a blueprint, and without question. I never knew to question. Born of a military father--order, obedience, and perfection ruled. Praise followed. I followed. Yet in my pursuit of perfection, I only found pain. Without a voice, without your own thinking, going through the motions becomes life, with little living in between. Numbness was normalcy, and emptiness was better than anger and fear. But our souls aren't meant to live this way, and my pain eventually found a voice, by manifesting into an eating disorder.


The last 12 years have been a healing of my spirit, a mending of my dreams, and the recovery of my soul. This blog is about my becoming and my evolution--knowing that there is always a better version of me waiting to unfold. It never stops. Every day, it's the small things that usually offer the greatest rewards for self discovery. In the last couple years I found something else that has propelled growth... Passion. There is nothing that feeds and ignites the soul better than passion. For me, passion is not bound in a thing or from a thing. Passion is a presence. Passion is a powerful infusion of emotions that elevates a simple moment to the plane of joyous living. Passion is wonderful. It has changed everything--my thinking, my perceptions, my hopes, my dreams, my life. With passion, wandering and wondering discovers new meanings. Now I am here, sharing these discoveries with you.


I AM:


A mother to a funny, loving boy and a precocious, imaginative girl.


Half Japanese and happily married to my best friend--a creative and passionate French boy.


An obsessive reader, writer, and lover of the written word.


A spiritual seeker and believer of the Tao, yin and yang.


A lover of nature.


A lover of handmade things.


A lover of learning new things.


A recovering control freak and perfectionist.


A recovering consumer, an evolving wannabe handmade producer--knitter, crocheter, baker, gardener, soapmaker, and all around aspiring homemaker.


An embracer of peaceful parenting and a recovering authoritative parent.


A partner to my children.


A growing unschooler unlearning and deprogramming lifelong, conditioned behaviors and thoughts on learning, living, and parenting, beside her unschooled, very happy, and very much alive and not just living, children.


Completely grateful and honored that you are here...

MJ


The Laughing Heart


your life is your life
don’t let it be clubbed into dank submission.
be on the watch.
there are ways out.
there is a light somewhere.
it may not be much light but
it beats the darkness.
be on the watch.
the gods will offer you chances.
know them.
take them.
you can’t beat death but
you can beat death in life, sometimes.
and the more often you learn to do it,
the more light there will be.
your life is your life.
know it while you have it.
you are marvelous
the gods wait to delight
in you.


-- by Charles Bukowski