I'm not sure I've ever in my life at a time when so much was going on, when a torrent of energy and activity was seemingly around every breath. I'm doing my best to remain upright in it all, but I have to say, until I can find my balanced place in it, I'll probably be pretty flaky in terms of posting.

The real lesson is that you can never predict the future, even in the smallest of detail.

The wedding is fast approaching, and in just a week from this moment, I'll be dressed in my suit and standing on the deck of the Skansonia, welcoming guests and family. Being involved in this celebration has been one of the deepest and challenging moments of my life, and the crafting of words around a ritual is something I haven't tried to do in over a decade. But today, just today, I became more familiar with the text and put in what I'm calling the final edit. It's all really what my heart and my guides would like me to say, which also means surprisingly that only a few elements of my original thoughts of what this might look like actually made it into the final. As pleased as I am with it, and as much as I'm looking forward to stepping into a role that I'd like to commit to for the rest of my life, I think I'm looking more forward to the moments after the energy is released, the food is served, and I can make deep and real relaxed connections with the members of this community.

Yesterday, Boo, Troch and I took a wild adventure to Harstine Island, a 2 hour plus trek each way, a day that spanned 12 hours of a tapestry of different locations, emotions, discussions and had in the middle of it this total peace of connection to the trees, to the water, and to the slowness of time and talk that comes from immersion into the natural surroundings. The next week of my life wedding-wise will be pretty intense and active. But today I'm sitting on the porch and otherwise doing nothing but laying on the sofa watching TV from wake to sleep. I can feel my batteries charging.

Work has also shifted with the departure of the person I've been joined to the hip with for over two years. The confusion of the transition, the extra pressure of a very narrow work window in which to complete so many things wears on me. I'm trying to breathe today so that my stomach isn't clenched up thinking about what I have to deal with the next five days, how much overtime I might have to work and how that might impact my time with family and friends. The future there is also an unknown.

And then, there is streamsandpools, about which I struggle to know what to write. The depth of that connection and the possibility of it knocks my brain off my shoulders. She's visiting me for five weeks, though she is currently traveling in California and the discoveries we've had together are pretty profound and something very big is happening there. Just what that is remains to be seen. But as much as wedding and work are taking up my "knocked off my feet" quotient, her visit is probably five times those two things combined. I'm glad I lived long enough to meet her and to welcome her into our family and our kindred.

And so, overall, I'm good but pretty overwhelmed. I'm even daily overwhelmed. But I'm trying to remain present and breathe through this time, to acknowledge it for it's beauty and to flow in places that are extremely unfamiliar and scary to me. I'm also trying to sleep and to eat and to remember my needs and my wholeness. But some minutes and hours, that's really a chore.

I wonder sometimes what September will look like and just cannot imagine the changes in my life the next three weeks will bring and how they will ripple forward. You just never know what's around the next corner, ya know?

Love to you all.