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Summer 2008 is a vague memory. We didn't take time off so it feels as though I missed it. September has been a sunny blessing as I hear that August was rainy. I was in Berkeley and Sonoma and Walnut Creek and Taos and Emeryville. It was gorgeous but I was tired and mostly working or sleeping lousy due to jet leg coming from one direction or another.

What do writers mean when they say, "You have to go all the way to the bottom"?

"In my darkest night, when the moon was covered and I roamed through the wreckage, a nimbus-clouded voice directed me: "Live in the layers, not on the litter." Though I lack the art to decipher it, no doubt the next chapter in my book of transformations is already written. I am not done with my changes." Stanley Kunitz

Sometimes I don't give thanks enough, feel gratitude enough, feel fortunate and count my blessings enough. I've never had a great 2nd person relationship with God to find a place to give thanks.

"Morning Glory! Another thing I will never know." Basho

It is a funny thing to speak of opening one's heart as though we can do it on command. We have all been raised with our own stereotypes and biases and I can honestly say that if it is late at night and I am walking down a street alone and a man steps out walking toward me, I am not working on opening my heart. In that moment, I am vigilant.

I was resting after a set of 150 pound leg presses when George asked me if I had ever heard the expression, "tiptoeing my way safely toward death." I hadn't. My response was, "No way for me, George. I'm going out in a full blaze to the end." He laughed and responded, "Me too." I was pumped up and filled with endorphins gone wild.

When I was in fifth grade, my homeroom teacher was Mr. Orifice. Yes, really. He was Italian and when he came to Canada as a boy, his father changed their surname to Orifice from Orifici (pronounced Ori-fi-chee). He changed the "i" at the end of the name to an "e" and personally, I think that was a mistake.

I work with many clients who are not thrilled in the work that they are doing. Finding or discovering more satisfying work is a common coaching topic. So many men and women are miserable at their jobs or career choices. They also feel a call of something more, something deeper, something more core to who they are and how they hold their sense of Self.

I have a history of speaking up when I have needed to. I will have difficult conversations with people versus letting things go unsaid or fester. For the most part, I think I stay relatively capable in those conversations.