Sacred Games

where your attention goes, energy flows

You can learn a line from a win and a book from defeat.

~Paul Brown

I was born on a Monday. That Friday night, when I was four days old, I attended my first football game, along with my postpartum mother, her parents, my just-turned-one-year-old sister and our dad, who was the head coach.

My earliest years, I spent on a football field, at practices and games, home and away, hiding under bleachers or weaving among shoulder pads, helmets and cleats, listening to my dad yell at boys, amidst the roaring and thundering feet of cheering fans.

Where I come from, football was sacred. It was how boys became men, and that particular blend of dominating, aggressive, and emotionally guarded masculinity defined much of my childhood.

As things go, I no longer watch football, but I’m comfortable in the throes of chaos, and I know how to go for it on 4th down.

As an adult, I get to choose what I pay attention to. And what we pay attention to grows. We become what we practice, shaped by what occupies our time.

You could say that love itself is the quality of attention we pay to things.

What do you pay attention to?

Is it worthy of your time?

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Please respond to this email if you are interested in joining our Artist’s Way group. We will commit to 12 weeks of a daily writing practice, with weekly artist dates.

If you’re a paid subscriber at any level, you are invited to join our upcoming Artist’s Way group, with weekly accountability markers and monthly Zoom check-ins.

Our cohort will convene on Zoom starting on Saturday, January 4th. Most of the work will be self-directed, but I will provide space for weekly written responses, monthly conversations on Zoom, and 12 weeks of support. Please rsvp by responding to this email and I will send you the link and and basic guidelines for our practice together.We will introduce ourselves and write together in our first session; our second meeting will be a report and check-in, as well as an invitation to ask questions, and our third meeting will be a wrap-up and an opportunity to share your journey and where’s it’s taken you.

January 4, 2025 at 1:00 PT/4:00 ET

February 1, 2025 at 1:00 PT/4:00 ET

March 1, 2025 at 1:00 PT/4:00 ET

The Zoom link will be the same for every meeting.

Last opportunity to win a stay in the tiny cottage!

Hidden tiny tiny tiny cottage

All annual subscribers, including gift subscriptions:

The tiny, tiny, tiny cottage in the middle of the forest is rising and will be finished early this winter, and I’d like to invite one of you to spend a night here, in the forest.

All annual subscribers as of December 13, 2024, will be included in a drawing for a free night in the cottage. Founding members will also be offered a hosted dinner in a larger cabin nearby (with me!). Drawing will take place on December 14, and the winning subscriber will be contacted via email by December 14. You will be able to choose/schedule a date of your choosing in 2025, and you will receive concrete details and directions (the cottage is in southern California, about 90 minutes northeast of Los Angeles, not accessible by Google maps). If you decline, I will offer the cottage to another subscriber. With the winner’s permission, I’ll announce their name in an email to all annual subscribers. I am also offering the winner an opportunity to guest post, showcasing their night in the forest.

Floating

If you’d like to gift a subscription to Forager Fridays to someone you love for Christmas, click below! A Substack subscription is the perfect gift for the reader in your life who already has all the stuff, and will give them access to our upcoming artist’s way series.

Thank you for reading Forager Fridays — your support allows me to keep doing this work.

Thank you for being on this journey with me. I am grateful for the gift of your presence. Walking this path, knowing so many of you are walking it too, gives me hope. May we recognize our interbeing, with one another and the anima mundi, supporting each other in growth and recovery, like a mycelial network.