I’ve been feeling like I’ve not been creating enough recently. Those thoughts lead me to start to question what it means to me to create, be creative, and I’ve come to believe that the creativity, art, making and doing are all expressions of processing life and healing wounds.
I am coming to realize that artists and performers of all types use their processes to give voice to their struggles and joys, to attempt to resolve the challenging parts of their lives using the tools that they have, their own talents. I look forward with a sense of excitement to the days when I have enough energy and vigor in my life to be creating work that will not only help me in healing myself, processing my own experience, but can extend beyond the walls of my own home and be of service to others.
I’ve been struggling to reconcile my emotions and actions following the loss of a friend, relocation to Los Angeles from Vermont, change in career, and staggering loneliness and anxiety. I feel that I have no way of understanding or comprehending why these things are happening in my life, what the purpose is for all the pain and isolation that I’ve been feeling. I have come to believe that I need not know the purpose of experience, only to accept and allow it and take care of myself. I am grateful to be able to exert my energies toward my own recovery and sense of wellness, without feeling the need to fret and dissect infinite imaginary past and future scenarios. I get to be, right now, and enjoy this instant.
All my creative energy has been pouring into making this new place a home, creating healing practices and space. I’ve been making very few objects that extend beyond my own realm, save bouquets of flowers, smoothies and homemade pizzas.
I wanted to share a suite of personal projects, a group of things that have been helping me heal and find strength:
Graham’s California Oats : Single Serving
• 1/2 Cup Rolled Oats
• 1 Tablespoon Coconut Oil
• Handful of Raisins
• Sprinkle of Sucanat
• Pinch of Powdered Ginger
• Pinch of Powdered Cinnamon
• Handful of Mixed Berries
In a small saucepan over medium heat, melt coconut oil and pour in raisins, fry lightly and add oats. Toast and stir oats occasionally for a couple minutes. Add sucanat, ginger and cinnamon. Next, carefully add water to hot pan. Cover and reduce heat to low, let simmer until all water is absorbed and oats are fully cooked: not too crunchy, not too gooey. Put it in a bowl and top it with butter and berries, maybe a little maple syrup. Eat it with a spoon.
I buy my coconut oil from the vitamin shoppe, they have the best deal on the stuff which can get super expensive if you buy it in smaller quantities. If you tell them the price that you found on the website, they will give you the same deal in the store, even if it is marked at a higher price.
My Morning Beverage
This is an equal parts mix of Buckwheat and Ox Root. I picked up the Buckwheat down in Gardena. It is available at most Japanese grocery stores. The Ox Root comes from Vital Tea Leaf in San Francisco, but could be acquired from most Chinese herbalists. The combination of these two flavors is vibrant, wholesome, woodsy and rooted. I combine about a teaspoon of each in a tea ball and can get a few infusions out of it at least.
Prayer Tree
I visited the Koyasan Buddhist Temple in Little Tokyo, downtown LA and saw a tree there that many pieces of string had been tied to. I thought it was beautiful and it inspired me to start tying strips of fabric to the tree that sways outside my french windows here. I write down my prayers, asking for help with courage, strength and wisdom and tie them to the tree and then go about my day.
My Plants

I’ve been gathering and sowing seeds of my favorite plants and they are really starting to grow and take off, even with all my moving and re-potting and moving and re-potting. The breeze from my windows blows through the lavender toward my desk where I work and write, making the room smell soft and electric. Thusfar, I’ve got
• Lemons
• Madder
• Oak
• Date Palms
• Lavender
• Rosemary
• Sedum
• Baby Necklace
• Anonymous Melon : Found the seed on my floor and planted it, wonder what I’ll get!
Lanterns
These lanterns recently arrived in the mail with a shipment of my things from Vermont. I feel so grateful to have them back in my life. They are suspended from a spider web of chain that weaves across my ceiling. At night, I place candles inside them and my room glows a mellow peach.