The Great Unknown

Maybe great, maybe mediocre, definitely unknown.

Hey there. Here are some thoughts from five of my days this week.

January 11

I guided a group breathwork session at Level Yoga in Vero Beach. It was well-attended, such a lovely space, and as always, I wish there was a magical way I could lay on the floor and participate too, because the energy shifts in the room are so wonderful to witness.

I love guiding breathwork sessions and want to do more of them. If you ever want me to offer a group breathwork class in your town or at any kind of retreat, please let me know (especially if you are in Florida.) I call the session “The Magic Hour” because of how much people’s energy shifts in one session.

January 13

Still haunted by the LA fires. Feeling helpless to help. But if I’m being honest, I also feel guilty for feeling grateful to not have to be face-to-face with the tragedy of it all. Anyone not in LA gets to reflect on the tragedy without the pressure to DO anything about it, before the people actually experiencing the tragedy are through it yet. Something about this age of real-time-commentary during a crisis doesn’t seem right.

I know these LA places very well and can’t comprehend that they are flat-out gone. History turned the page SO suddenly and shouted a harsh order “The past is past! You may no longer visit the past. You can’t go back. Only forward.“ People have been given no choice but to move forward. On the outside, we will be learning from other people’s pain and loss. I don’t know what this level of loss feels like, but I know it’s enormous, beyond description.

I am optimistic, knowing that human beings can always create something new, informed by the wisdom of the past. I believe in human creativity. I believe in human beings. This is easy for me to say from afar. But with something that has such a scale, having affected so many people, the whole country is witnessing and learning.

Side note: political responses are not the learning. Politics are supposed to reflect what people have learned. And lessons are as diverse as people’s experiences are. Can extreme two-party-politics even listen to a diversity of experiences, a spectrum of lessons learned? I’m going into 2025 completely exhausted by polarized political parties. The far left and the far right are both so alienating.

We all want to make sense of things quickly, to feel in control, in out-of-control times. Pointing fingers makes bystanders feel in control. But as far as I can see, from thousands of miles away, our job as bystanders is to open our hearts with as much compassion as we can summon, open our wallets as much as we can individually afford, open our eyes to what we can improve in our own communities, and open our minds to as many future possibilities as we can imagine. Is there anything else? There probably is.

Imagination and creativity are our superpowers in the face of crisis. There is a lot of crisis bubbling.

January 14

Still thinking about🔥.

Survivors guilt is a thing, even if you don’t live near the fires. I left LA four years ago and can’t claim the tragedy as my own. Watching this tragedy unfold feels all-consuming.

But LA is not my “place” anymore.

So what makes a “place”?

What give someone a sense of place? I’ve thought a lot about this mystery, especially after having moved three times in the last five years. I’ve moved so many times in my life and always end up making a home. I find it fairly easy to feel at home in a new place. This makes me think that a place is defined mostly by our mere physical presence, along with the meaning we assign to a location.

Our presence + the meaning we create = making a place. This is egocentric, disorienting and reassuring, all at the same time. It’s kind of like the tree-falling riddle. How does a place exist for me, if I’m not there? When does a “place” become just an “idea of a place?” If I ever lost every tangible thing, God forbid, I’d try like hell to adopt this attitude, that wherever I go is my home, is my place. I make my place. The ego comes in handy. I am a terrible, amateur philosopher, but my limits don’t seem to stop me.

January 15

I highly recommend listening to this podcast conversation with Michael Meade, which blew my mind a little bit, the way he talks about these present times. I have to listen to the episode again.

It’s not the end of the world that’s happening, it’s the end of a world view that happening, and we are all initiates- Michael Meade

Late to the pandemic trend (I responded to it by painting the cover of a cookbook in 2020), a friend taught me to make sourdough bread this afternoon. To make one’s own bread feels totally revolutionary. It’s delicious, nutritious and I am beyond pleased with the result. Going forward, I am now a total bread snob.

Also today, I VERY randomly ended up at a talk by Ben Sasse (former Senator from Nebraska and president of University of Florida.) He’s a brilliant guy, an PhD historian with a lot of common sense things to say about higher education, kids, human potential, and neurology. He spoke thoughtfully, and while I definitely don’t agree with all of his ideology, his intellect was impressive, he has a very genuine heart, and I consider him one of the good conservatives out there (demonstrated, among other things, by his courageous and continuous criticism of DJT while he was in the Senate.)

So I started the day with a liberal-ish metaphysical openness, and ended the day with surprising admiration for some solid conservative ideas. It would be nice if 2025 proved to embrace this mish-mash of social-cultural-political perspectives that balance each other. (Not holding my breath.)

January 16

I baked my second loaf of sourdough. So satisfying and really simple. I used Einkorn ancient grain in the hopes that I will be able to digest the bread better, as making sourdough bread is pretty much a lifestyle once you get going.

Having to feed the starter every day is like having another pet. I’m into it, but nobody told me baking bread was such a COMMITMENT.

January 17

I sat in my newly organized garage/studio space and painted today! This is what I worked on organizing all week- it is not finished, but it’s functional and MUCH better!

A little meditation:

Think back to the Covid closure, the first three weeks when we all thought we’d have to be inside for a three weeks or so. What did you want to do with the time? What did you dream would be the outcome of getting to spend three weeks at home removed from your daily work or routine?

Mine was to make art.

So now I’m revisiting this dream and wondering:

Can I give myself permission to just create art that has no meaning at all? To just make colorful marks because it looks pleasing to me? And have it be purely decorative or even ugly or unsuccessful? Can I give myself permission just to play with color and paper and not have it be symbolic or deep or valuable to someone or anything at all? Just me using my hands, my instinct and enjoying the process? And what will be the outcome if I do this? Can I let myself experiamtn and suspend all thought of “outcome?” (I’m not sure I can suspend all aspration and future-tripping, but I am REALLY trying.)

Do you need to give yourself permission to play and experiment? Can you trust that something very cool and surprising might come out of immersing yourself in The Great Unknown?

These are five of my days, and honestly, this hasn’t been what I pictured this newsletter to be like. I expect it to get lighter and more creative in the future, but hey, this is how 2025 has started for me.

I hope your first two weeks of 2025 has sent you on a meaningful trajectory for the year.

Lots of love,

xoAubrey

P.S. Five things worth sharing:

1. This podcast episode, a conversation between Thomas Hübl and Michael Meade.

2. Last year, I was on the search for the perfect flat pillow that I could squish into my neck crook, and this was the only one that’s performed as needed. Forget Tempur-pedic, down, strangely shaped foam bricks- this flat pillow has saved my neck. It is a dream if you love flat squishy pillows. I’m talking FLAT and very moldable. In love with my flat, squishy pillow.

3. Sourdough lifestyle essentials: This sourdough baking kit. I also got this dutch oven which is great, but I think I could use a regular Le Creuset pot. And these cute bread bags. (thanks for the recs LW)

4. These shelves 💙 which I organized our garage with.

5. My hands are in winter shock. Or maybe it’s all the garage-organizing, bread-making. This is my latest-favorite hand creme that’s helping heal my reptile skin.

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