This journal entry was inspired by and taken from a letter to a close lifelong friend from California, Jen Rosen;

My meditations on my dear friend Jen Rosen’s paintings have helped me feel the need and pull to open my sketchbook up and use it… to draw, to paint, whatever comes, to journal… must do!

I recently had a strong vision to do four sweats (Native American sweatlodge ceremony) in eight days.  A powerful cleanse, and a dire need to sweat.  I am meditating on having it ready for solstice and doing one then.  I need to build the sweat, so finding those moments is big.

It’s been a hectic time since I got back from El Salvador.  Missing almost two weeks of work out of a month made getting the mortgage together a real grind.  We managed it, but just… whew!!!  It was the first time I can remember where I really let it get me depressed.  sigh.  Such a grind sometimes.  I am blessed in that we have been well and able… but it all teeters on the edge so much… this whole system.

I am trying to get a clear image in my minds eye of a circle of yurts in the woods, part of a larger vision I share with friends who with us would relocate to the southwest.  I have seen it once or twice, so I am working on focusing on it.

I have often had difficulty in the last ten years or so focusing on a dream or vision.  I get clouded in my present state so easily.  My challenges as a husband of a beautiful but damaged wife, and the tragedy of my own faults as a father and a business person, equally damaged.

I have hopeful days that show me possibility here where we are, but still we lack community, real community with purpose.  I feel so torn by this often in my present that focusing on those dreams and visions are a struggle, like the community vision for the Southwest.  I have doubts about our personal ability in such a place, a close knit community.  But still, it is what I want and idealize about.

Picked up Sun Bears Path of Power, and looking for revisions of hope and self strength.

I just got up to turn up the heat in my chilly office and as I sat my eyes rested upon one of the quotes hanging on my wall: "Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it.  Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it." W.H Murray, Leader of the 1952 Scottish Ascent of Mount Everest

Baby steps.  I got out into the woods on my cross country skis this morn.  Mostly a workout venture to get my body healthier, but being out there helped me consider being there to build my sweat lodge.  I have a week.  Gonna focus on that outside my work.  Got to.