i have arrived.

all is well.

will rest today and head to CASA tomorrow.

it happens every time.

i love the adventure and i am always challenged by the leaving. the comfort of my people. their love, their voices, their touch. they are my home.

and so here i am. at the airport. leaving for mexico in just three hours. i am filled with poignancy, the vulnerability of living. i’m already in that transition zone–the anticipating coming to meet the experience. there is always fear before departure. the release and the letting go. and there is always buoyancy, too. the messages of belief and the offerings of confidence and faith. i sit here, glass of wine in hand, part of me longing for the warm bodies of home, knowing that this is what it is to truly be awake: to be somewhere between longing and calling. to be rooted and also free. to be loved and to be let go. to trust, to allow, to strategize, and to surrender.

with 23 hours to go, 55 people have backed this leg of the doorways project. the lenses are clean, the notepad is ready. i’m shedding layers of what-if’s and writing to you from the continental airport lounge. i just want to do my part. to give what i’ve got to give.

it’s been a big year for me and my people. we’ve learned what it is to experience separation and to find one another again more deeply in love and rooted than ever before. it is hard to leave them, if only for a little less than two weeks. the truth is that i’ve got a family that rocks my world and a world that rocks my heart.

there is room and time for both. and one would not exist without the other. it is in the fully living, the chest open, that freedom expands. the doorways are everywhere, even in the leaving.

next post will be from san miguel de allende…

photo: when we went blueberry picking. i love the muted, not quite in focus, forms. i love them. july 2011.

it hurts to be stung. a lot. the sensation is one of fire, needles, pressure that demands attention. i was stung by a bee on the bridge of my nose while hiking this week. i wept as a terrified four year old. a mild allergy made me fear losing my breath, adrenaline surged my heart.

but, i was not alone. i was held, nurtured, walked gently to the car and taken home to rest.

i thought of other kinds of stings. of being misunderstood, rejected, unseen, and unsupported. especially by those we should feel most safe with. when compassion eludes us, especially toward ourselves, the sting is that much more painful.

i read a beekeeper’s account that when we put our mind on the sting, the physiological experience of the venom is much, much worse. they have actual evidence of this.

the bee this week reminded me to get back into my body. to stay present with the vulnerability, with the fear, and with the love and support that my adult self has all around me. i carry sadness for the ways i was stung in my life, accumulated memories where silence, unkindness, and withholding  led me to make decisions about my young self that i was somehow flawed, unworthy, unlovable. while the adult part of me knows these things to be untrue, sometimes, still, i forget.

the shame of feeling these young feelings is usually the worst sting of all.

but being loved, held, supported despite being seen as a frightened and weeping four year old? being told i am beautiful and adored despite a swollen face? better than two benedryl and twelve hours sleep. better than years of therapy and all the comfort food in the world.

may we all know this experience. to be stung back into awakening. and to be loved, without judgment, fear, or condition, all the way from four to forty.

note: just 8 days left to support the kickstarter campaign for the next leg of the Doorways Project. i’ve added an update to address concerns about my traveling in Mexico. the support i’ve received so far has blown me over, from friends to talented photographers and film-makers that i look up to and adore. thank you for seeing and believing in me, despite my swollen face and lingering four year old thoughts. i cannot wait to show up and witness CASA and One Heart World-Wide in action; and to be your eyes and ears for the important stories the midwives and mothers need to be told.

photo: on the same trail where the bee got me. iphone. august 2011.

at long last, i can share with you the images from the adesso and sorellina fall 2011 shoot that i did back in march. i wrote a little about it here. i honestly never dreamt of becoming a commercial photographer, and what has been so incredible for me is that the projects i have been able to collaborate on for adesso have given me the opportunity to grow my technical skill and to have an experience of pushing myself into a greater scope of vision and creativity. as with everything great in life, working with samantha, the models, the make-up artists, and the adesso team, is all about relationship and connection; and about meeting in that place of transparent passion, willingness, and leap. i’ve watched my friend create not only successful, stunning, and gorgeous jewelry collections, but also a network of collaborators and allies that serve to promote beauty and wellness in the world. it has been phenomenal to witness adesso grow in scope and breadth, i am nothing short of grateful for the opportunity to have been a part of it.

this last shoot came on the heels of a solid week of rain. as we drove north to demetria estate winery the night before, i more than once considered my safety as the wall of water fell on my windshield. but as the grace of things meant to be arrived the next morning, the rain stopped, and for the next two days, the sun and clouds put on a fabulous show, gifting the most dramatic lighting a photographer could ask for. not to mention an inspiring landscape of rolling hills, vineyards, and olive groves.

it was on this shoot that i first really appreciated the dark spaces in my images. the shadows and the blacks. i was comfortable leaving those things, even enhancing them, and reflected upon how, previously, i would have been tempted to pull up the curve. the phrase art mimics life could not be more true.

again, i am grateful and open as i share these images with you. thank you to models hillary souza and brandi wolff for trusting me with your beauty and for revealing yourselves to the lens. and again, thank you to samantha goldstone and liberty hanson, adesso founder and creative director, for your vision and willingness to walk through new doorways together.

you can now download and view the adesso lookbook and the sorellina lookbook to view the rest of the images of fall 2011 collections. also, see samantha’s post with some behind the scenes images over on the adesso blog.