How much Light do you feed the beauty of your own body and mind?

Before I go on about the film, I will give you what you’re used to receiving from me: a dose of personal sharing that lets you see into the world of another soul who longs for the same lustrous beauty in her Life, as you do.

Note: Cliché as the word ‘Light’ might be, I invite you to look beyond its form as a word and to just feel it instead – because sometimes, things become cliché only when our heads are so stuck in the sand that we need to hear them far more often than we would if our eyes weren’t glutted with grit – if our clearest eyes were open.

Not the eyes that perceive from the noise of scrambling, pursuing and thinking-we-know, but the eyes that are surrendered to and led by the Light you are.

I’m at the end of an arc right now, in relation to this blog. No, I’m not ending it. I was born and I will die with a pen “in” my heart. Extending my soul’s Love through writing is a birthright.

It’s just that…

“Change is the only constant,” as the moon told me when I was 13.

Prolonged comfort is unnatural for embodied Life.

It creates biological atrophy, psychological stagnation and more problems. Growth only happens outside familiar routines, and discomfort is often the catalyst required to move forward.

If we want to play the game our own Life wants us to play, serving the purpose our soul is meant to serve, we must tune in to really listen, and sit with the question:

Where does Truth want me to place my attention, right now?

When a tipping point of humans engages with that question, the reality we perceive will change radically. Truth and attention are major players in the human experience.

The more often I tune into this self-inquiry, the better everything goes. I stand with Van Gogh, who wrote this (below) in a letter to his brother on September 18, 1888.

Loving people has always been my path. Yet there are endless ways to love each other. How it looks depends on the tools and delights of each of us who chooses Love, as art.

It was 2011 when I began this stream of writing for you. The start of an arc.

Originally a blog called Living Sensually, its name morphed into Leaning into Light as my desire to leave you feeling loved found a new perspective – first rooted in the pleasures of the senses, then moving toward the Source of all pleasure – Light.

Before the name change, I had an intense romantic relationship with Light and wrote letters to it, like this one from Friday, February 3, 2012, while living in Chico, California.

How many sunsets have drawn your adoring gaze and left you in an invisible puddle of your own serene drool?

Light is intoxicating beauty. It quiets the useless noise in our minds.

I’ve named two daughters after it.

First was Lusa, my canine companion for 14 years. Here’s the start of a letter I wrote to her on the day she died, Monday July 8, 2013 — To my Light Girl.

Next was Beam, the middle name of my human daughter, born six months before Lusa died.

I couldn’t not name my child after Light. Nothing throws me into giddy bliss as quickly and completely as a child.

Amusingly, when her father and I named her, I didn’t even know her first name – Helena – meant Light too. It was just my favorite she-name during pregnancy.

Per Google: The name Helena is of Greek origin and means “shining light,” “torch,” or “bright one.” It is the classic Latinate form of the name Helen and is deeply rooted in both mythology and history. The name is tied to the Greek word helios (meaning “sun”) or helene (meaning “torch”).

In 2011, the name Leaning into Light sprouted from my heart, gut and soul.

Its meaning and purpose were totally clear and today, 15 years later, they still are. The name and I chose each other. Lovemaking, through words. And so, perhaps especially for those of you who are new to my writing —

What is leaning into Light?

Hundreds of broken hearts helped me choose this name.

From romantic tangos and interludes with men, yes. Bewildering heartbreak.

But most of my broken hearts came from feeling the depths of oceanic sadness around how asleep we are as a human species.

Intensely feeling the beauty of the human Spirit, yet seeing how unwilling we are as a collective, to actually…

Respect our life support system.
Respect our own souls.
Respect our breath.
Respect children.
See the Light.

I thought, If we could actually see how beautiful we are, we could only act from a place of beauty.

Share Leaning into Light

If we feed beauty inside ourselves, we could feed only beauty, outside ourselves. As within, so without. Right?

If the Light I felt and saw inside our souls—

⚡️ in the intoxicating sunlight glistening on the hips and limbs of a waterfall as it makes Love to gravity…

⚡️ in the lit-up wrinkles of wisdom around my grandma Angelina’s smile…

⚡️ in the perfect inner-moon-lit radiance of a baby’s eyes…

If humanity could only see and feel how beautiful we are, we might create a far more beautiful world than the one we have known.

Leaning into Light is a choice to feed our lives the divine beauty that streams inside every single one of us.

It is the choice to see Life’s glass half-full instead of half-empty.

The choice to own our power as creators, and surrender our victim identities.

The choice to humbly accept every opportunity to surrender ego, allowing Love to inhabit the space ego left empty.

The purpose of Leaning into Light, which is the name of my blog and my business, remains the same as it was 15 years ago.

To illuminate the beauty of the human spirit. ⚡️

It’s what my heart breathes.
It’s what my writing is for.
It’s what my lungs sing.

If your beauty feels fed here, stick around. If not, go places where it’s fed. That’s what I want for you.

Immediately after my February 2021 diagnosis of a massive brain tumor, I went into robot mode. A healthy kind of fear. Divine surrender. I was in the hands of divinity, The All. In the hands of the neurosurgeon and his medical team. Surrendered to being under anesthesia for 9 hours with my skull cut open.

I don’t know what time it was on the clock when my NDE occurred.

I do know that the 1st visitor was universal Light. Golden stars filled my middle, swirling in my abdomen and womb, cascading everything inside and around me with divine Light.

Subscribe now

This visit imprinted me forever. When I die out of this body, I will simply never again forget that Light is who and what I Am. I believe this is true for you too.

Patient, you are, still reading.
Beside me, drawn by Light. ✨

The movie I watched with my daughter tonight was Farmacy of Light. There is no film the world needs more right now.

I had no idea this magic existed in Orange County, as I drove north through it with my partner last Friday evening, crossing from San Diego north into Los Angeles. Somewhere not far off the 14- and 18-lane highways, surrounded by food deserts for 100s of miles, there is a magical reality being seeded, one mouth-blowingly beautiful head of lettuce and one dedicated pair of hands, at a time.

As the film puts it: “Food is the delivery system for sunshine.”

Sunshine heals. Eating good food heals. Light heals. We need all of this now.

Farmacy of Light is free to watch as I write this post. Want more Light in your eyes, dance and days? Watch it.

Eating crap-food, which is many Americans’ reality, ain’t gonna dish up the Light. Quite opposite, actually.

It is killing us.
Killing our immunity.
Killing our capacity to shine.

Having had a food and sugar addiction starting when I was a baby, I have learned in recent years that addiction doesn’t usually go away. Even though I made a massive, sharp turn after brain surgery and near death, declining gluten, dairy and cane sugar for almost two years – not just because we were in a pandemic with an inflammatory virus, but because brain surgery is inherently inflammatory and on top of that, I was visited by severe sciatica for 92 days after surgery – addiction is a persistent beast.

Inflamed, living hell. That is severe sciatica, one of the most painful things a human body can experience. Enough to force me to surrender to heavy pharmaceutical support – and become very grateful for it.

Farmacy of Light clarified the lens I see through and helped me reaffirm my marriage, my commitment, to the temple I inhabit – my body.

Because…

As time moved further away from near death, with its crystallized injection of Light, I slipped back into some of my poor eating choices. With our addictions, we are asked to choose again. And again. To say “Yes!” to what we want, and to surrender what dims our Light.

I trust you’ll be moved by this film’s compelling message delivered by farmers, chefs, doctors, quantum physicists and molecular biologists.

There is no shortage of solutions to make this world a breath-blissening, beautiful place.

A place where despair is rare, not regular.

It is time for us to lean into the Light that beams inside of us.

It is time to let the beauty of Who We Are, shine.

Not someone else. You, and me. ✨

Share

P.S. It may sound strange, but I get lonely sometimes as a prolific ‘penned intimacy’ artist. Algorithms are often oddballs. They don’t really know what feeds our being, what turns us on and supports our journeys with loving our own precious lives.

I appreciate having a sense of what genuinely feeds you, and so, my next post might include a poll.

Meanwhile, I ask that if you were moved by this post… 1) At minimum, click ‘like’ so the algo-crickets get the memo and my heart knows you’re here, or 2) Comment. Even one word is appreciated, or 3) Become a paid subscriber for the monthly cost of two coffees. Thanks for being here.

Subscribe now

Last weekend I reveled and basked in Three’s magic. It’s a story with so many enticing tentacles that I could write a whole book about it. Yet today I’ll share a short post, focused on inspiring you to feed your dreams with the potent sweetness of Three.

Before I share the story, here are four noteworthy nods to Three in human history.

In the year 1308, Italian poet Dante Alighieri started writing his masterpiece The Divine Comedy, a poem representing the soul’s journey toward God. The poem’s various versions range from 400-900 pages long, and it’s written entirely in 3-line interlocking stanzas called terza rima. Dante’s use of terza rima reflected his belief in Three being the numerical signature of divine wholeness.

In the first half of the 20th century, Swiss psychologist Carl Jung, who revolutionized the understanding of the human mind, identified Three as the first number that transcends the self/other binary, the number at which a field begins to exist. Two creates opposition; Three creates dynamic.

Ecological poet Robinson Jeffers wrote repeatedly about the triangle of land, sea, and sky as the complete frame of existence, no fourth element needed.

There’s a concept sometimes called “tertius gaudens” which is Latin for the third who rejoices, and it’s used in sociology to describe how a third party in any relationship gains unique power and perspective unavailable to either of the original two. What happened last Saturday may have had exactly this quality: each of us three co-creators was, at times, the rejoicing third.

The through-line across most of these sources is consistent:

Three is where addition ends and emergence begins. ✨

And now, the story.

Share

It all started in June 2025 at a backyard party with my daughter’s school community. Parents, children, grandparents, teachers, aunts and uncles gathered round picnicking at sunset, with music cascading down a softly-sloped hillside, played by a widely loved school dad named Arron/DJ Urn.

My party mission was simple: Dance.

Even with many lovely people present, I truly just wanted to dance. Near-death struck me with dance-fever so intensely in February 2021, that I'll still be dancing on my deathbed. For 3 1/2 hours, with children and elders and the full moon glaring its radiant yes on our foreheads, I frolicked and danced to DJ Urn’s music and my bloodstream turned to moonlit honey from the exuberant childlike joy of moving my body to music.

Dancing lit up my whole existence, and I felt its relieving, liberating, revitalizing impact on other people too.

All of me wanted more dancing for everyone on Earth. ✨

At the end of the night, I gazed at the voluptuous moon with awestruck, hormonally-lit chills and tears streaming through every pore, and the moon and I made a pact. I would dedicate part of my Life to bringing more dance into the world, and she — yes, to me, the moon is a she and the sun, a he — would support me.

I felt and knew my dream was real. I spoke it, it was heard and it would be supported. ✨

In the months that followed, Arron/DJ Urn and I exchanged appreciation for each other’s love of music and dance. Simultaneously, he’d been talking with his friend Casey, another dad at the school who’s enamored with music and dance.

The yes of Three was in the air.

Fed by the buzzing energy we shared as a trio, the dream took root and we decided to co-create a dance party. We were Three, supported by the moon’s generosity.

Starting in late autumn 2025, for months our trio worked to plan the event. None of us was getting paid. We did it for the Love of music and dance. Seeking a venue, choosing a name, trying to understand rules for serving alcohol (which we surrendered this time around since it was too complicated), managing messaging, promotion, ticket sales, snacks and the budget… event planning is very detailed.

As a former wedding planner, in my years of business with Love Events (2004-2008), I can assert that it’s rare to find two individuals you work with who feel like full-on equals.

• Equals in the sense that they consistently show up to meet you, not just in person but soulfully, with transparency and presence.

• Equals, responding promptly to your communication, honoring their truth and yours.

• Equals, playing important roles that complement yours, doing the work needed to bring your shared vision into reality.

• Equals, co-creators who also dream of what you’re co-creating…

Bringing people together in an immersion of vitality while we're alive, to make the world and more joyful and beautiful place through dance. ✨

Our trio’s vibe had me feeling so committed that every day for months, I felt Three’s magic in the air. From one full moon to another, I had to remind myself: Jess, you’re doing this as a volunteer. You’re not getting paid. Prioritize your paid work and then put in time on this event.

It felt that good. Not like work, but like magic that wanted to happen through us. Through the soulfully activated beauty of one + one + one exponentiated, as Three.

Last Saturday when our HeartBeats launch party happened, the magic was felt by 75+ people who came to make art and dance. At first HeartBeats was just the name for the party we dreamt-up. Now it’s also the chosen name for our trio, our co-creative three: HeartBeats.

One of many signs that HeartBeats wanted to happen, was the extraordinary blessing of partnering and co-hosting with Life On Art. It is one of the most inspiring organizations on Earth and it’s a spectacular space for a dance party. Founder Tracy Ferron and her team welcomed us with wide-winged open arms and led us to create 50 winged hearts which will travel out into prisons and transitional housing communities serving the incarcerated and other underserved populations.

Subscribe now

Artmaking was followed by hours of dancing with a fantastic set from DJ Urn. Children skipped and leapt, grown ups felt the groove, and the sweetness of Three infused one spot on Earth with the astounding beauty of Child-reverence, community, wellness, and Love.

As I write, two days after the event, I feel intoxicated by Three’s magic. I feel…

Huge thanks to people who play and make music. ✨

Huge thanks to everyone who volunteered at our HeartBeats launch. ✨

Huge thanks to my body for staying alive during brain surgery, so we can dance. ✨

Huge thanks to all the children who came and created art, danced, jumped, squealed and helped us grown-ups reclaim our sense of playfulness! ✨

Huge thanks for my near death experience, and its lightning-bolt magnetics that streaked my passion for dance into fields of sheer bliss. Here’s a recent NY Times piece on that, What I Saw When I Peeked Over the Edge of Consciousness. ✨

Huge thanks to Arron/DJ Urn and Casey, two of the finest humans, men, fathers, and co-creators ever to walk this planet. Your presence has added flickers of I-could-die-happy to my Life. And that is really big. ✨

The power of Three is exponential. Is it magic? That’s up to you to decide.

What seemingly magical dream do you want to bring into being? ✨

• A freestyle frisbee festival on the beach?

• A mobile vegan hotdog stand that you can bike around town?

• A spacious local venue for play, music, community exchanges that invoke the most authentic artist within every person who enters its doors?

• A book you co-author while bike touring globally with two other cappuccino devotees?

If no dream comes to mind, when you get horizontal tonight, ask Life to show you one in your sleeping-dreams.

Who shares your dream with you? ✨

• Your best friend? Boyfriend? Wife?

• That sparkly lady you keep running into at the café?

• A neighbor child whose companionship makes you feel young again?

If no one comes to mind, call it in. Write about your co-creative trio in your journal. Sing about it on long drives. Ask to see these people in your dreams. Somewhere ‘out there’ in the world, two people share your dream and want to co-create with you.

As a lifelong devotee of The Child and fan of Sesame Street, I will close with a nod to the Sesame Street song Three, first televised in 1993 and again in 2007 when Big Bird was frustrated and Granny Bird reminded him: “You’re a bird and birds always have a song in their heart.” I do soulfully suggest, whenever you’re feeling depressed or anxious, turn up your favorite song and sing.

Stay tuned for what’s coming next. With my inner child gleefully lit-up by the joy of dance and music, and the magic of Three, I promise: You are held, your dreams are supported, and you are being cheered on by vast realms, beyond the invisible. The key factor in making it real is your Life force, believing it into being, one day after another. Go! 🍓✨

In college, my dreams evolved to see watersheds where all of life’s species were respected, where landscapes felt lusciously alive, like variant versions of heaven on earth.

Usually, I would simply let the dream live inside of me, leaving its mark as sparks in my eyes.

Sometimes, I would chase the dream, efforting to make it feel more real.

Many times, this happened in romance. The passion I felt through the electric surges in my body, my breathing temple, led me to reach for men who weren’t available. Outside the lines. Long, heartbreak-filled story short? It never worked.

It never brought me acquisition of what, or who, I was chasing. As it turns out, my deeper and clearer self actually wanted something else, much more.

The pain of heartbreak or apparent failure helped me clarify what I wanted, in romance and partnership. No, not that. Yes, that! The bigger gift this pain gave was nudging me to finally accept the wisdom of my coach: ‘He’s not the source. You are.’

The source of everything you want is within you. You’d think I would have gotten that memo long before my coach broken-recorded it my way, for cryin’ out loud, I named my business Leaning into Light 15 years ago.

But as I often tell my teenage daughter, clichés exist for a reason. Once we don’t need to be incessantly reminded of something, the reminders will cease to exist.

Meanwhile:
Within…
Within…
Within…

Our sub/un-conscious mind seeks reminders because they’re needed.

One of my dearest girlfriends is calling in a man, a partner, a lover, a companion for life. From one perspective, it’s easy to see how you do that; 1) you get clear on what you want, 2) you ask for it, and then 3) you feel that it’s already happening and let go. Repeat.

Easier said than done! We know we cannot attract abundance from a mindset of scarcity. Yet, we humans have an inclination to chase what we’re looking for, to think that every time we’re highly attracted to someone who isn’t available, it’s a disappointment. Really, it’s the universe displaying evidence for us that it — this energy field, this precise composition of our dream, whipped up into reality — exists, as living proof that...

What we want to feel, how we want to feel, what we want to see in our material reality, exists! Right before our eyes!

The catch is: that specific person is not the source.

Lovers, jobs, houses and cars, lifestyles and drama with people we blame for our own misery... We chase all of these things. We chase stability, freedom and even Love, when...

The Source of it all is within.

The dream is within the dreamer.
The source is within the dreamer.
Within is where optimal fruition is born.

Lately when I sing the Judds song, Dream Chaser, I simply change the lyrics. Instead of “Dream chaser, that’s what I am…” I sing, “Dream feeler, that’s what I am...”

Warning: there is no drama in freedom. We’re only ready when we’re ready. I still sometimes slip-up when I feel my wings becoming too bright and wide.

Yet for the sake of the Light that gives you life — ✨

What dream are you ready to stop chasing, and instead start thanking it for finding a home inside of you? The dreams inside of me are sending spark-eyed smiles to the dreams inside of you.

Hello, beloved readers. These sure aren’t boring times. Thank you for all the ways you choose to be Love in your days, instead of adding more fear to a world that’s already choking on it. You might’ve noticed I’ve sent fewer newsletters lately. Why? I’ve been leaning into Surrender, an essential way-of-being in these times — releasing the illusion of control in order to surrender to a greater power, trusting perfect order is at play in ways that I can’t see — surrender to the fact that we are all held in the arms of The Divine. The other reason is that my writing hours are being gobbled up by memoirs, and I’m loving it. After all, Life is only Now, and... Grief is natural when we lose a loved one. Heartbreak and regret don’t have to be. To learn more about my work as a memoirist, go here. And for today, here’s a piece I wrote in honor of one of the great risings in our midst: the resurgence of Her. 🦋 Jess

How She Reclaimed Her Life

One hundred women sat in a room softly lit by candles, to tell their stories.

Six of these women had diabetes, some since the day they were born, and some from eating excessive sugar or drinking too much wine.

Eight shared stories about how they’d been living their lives life by someone else’s rules, following a path their parents or church laid out, and how they finally accepted that they didn’t feel at home inside those rules. They wanted a life woven of their own passions, values, joys and vision. They were ready to cut the energetic umbilical cord they’d been clinging to.

One had a teenage son die in a car crash two weeks before. Her grief was oceanic. Through her tears, she asked, “How will I ever get through this pain? Is my son okay now, on the other side?”

Nine had learned their husbands were frequently communicating with other women through porn sites online, while their own sex life in marriage was flat. With the vitality of erotic connection long gone, they were dying to know, “How do we find our way out of this mess?”

Eighteen of these women had cancer.

For some, it was recently discovered. For others, it had metastasized in their breasts, lungs, and livers. The thought of fighting it, wearing shirts that said “fuck cancer” had zero appeal. In their clearest selves, they knew the cancer was a messenger, pointing them to a life of deeper beauty than they’d ever known. Whether that meant they had one year to live, or 20, they wanted to fully live it. Not in fear — in Love.

One woman just had a massive brain tumor discovered in her head.

She knew panic wasn’t an option if she was going to make it through this, alive. Her neurosurgeon didn’t know why it was there, but she knew it was from decades of using food and sugar to cope with the intensity of being human. She wanted to love her body. She believed in herself, she felt committed, but she knew she would need help along the way.

Four had just filed for divorce. They knew it was right, yet their heartbreak was raw. Their whole lives felt shattered. They wanted to move through their complex icky feelings into a new landscape eventually, and find partners who met them, valued them, whose arms and souls felt like home.

Twelve were sick and tired of their corporate jobs, for decades tolerating the rat-race for a stable paycheck while denying the vivid Light of their own soul purpose. They were done with the illusion of life always being in control. They wanted passion, adventure, and they felt ready to face the unknown.

Seventeen felt deadened by the geographies where they’d lived for many years. They had done all they came to do in those towns and cities, they wanted to explore new terrain and culture, and stop sticking their own aliveness in the backseat.

Six just felt empty. They dreamt of a life where their inner child could reemerge, where they felt brave enough to let their feelings show and speak their truth out loud. They wanted friendships that didn’t just fill up space and time, but actually left them feeling accompanied. Seen, celebrated, valued. Dynamically met.

And the last 17 women had different stories of pain screaming at them.
At their desk.
In the shower.
In their nightmares.
While cooking dinner.

All of these 100 women had something in common. They were ready to see another way. They were ready to see through new eyes.

This is pain’s call to us, its invitation.

All of these women had fear buried somewhere beneath the skin, expressing itself through pain in one form or another. Pain was inviting her, and her, and her, to see through Love’s eyes instead. To be open to the possibility that Love is actually who she is.

Love is actually who we are. All of us, yes, even _______ _____ and ______. (Spaces intentionally left blank; whose names did you come up with?) And until we see through Love’s clear lens, we will continue to imprison ourselves.

“Pain pushes until vision pulls.” Michael Beckwith

All of these women stood at the doorway of what Rumi, Carl Jung, Anais Nin and many wise ones have taught. I call it making love to fear.

Yet something was different in these women’s bodies, workdays and weekends, friendships and romantic relationships, in contrast to 1,000s of others who would suffer more —

Their readiness to accept that there is another way.
Their self worth in sensing something else is possible.
Their choice to lean into the only arms that heal anything: Love’s.

And so it goes.

In the human journey, some of us will choose to free ourselves by accepting that we are completely lovable, completely loved, and always have been. It is our own eyes that shape the way we see and are seen, meet and are met.

“Working on our own consciousness is the most important thing we are doing at any moment, and being love is the supreme creative act.” Ram Dass

Through a brave journey they shared that day, sitting in chairs circled-up in a room, each of these 100 women chose to embrace her own pain and the fear beneath it.

Each woman had her own story and she was willing to let go of what was familiar in order to see new possibilities.

She danced out her bewilderment, rage and despair.

She befriended possibilities that she used to think only magic wands could manifest.

She planted new fields and found new friendships, harvesting what felt useful and true and letting go of what was no longer fertilizer for her unique Life force.

She wrote herself love letters.

And again, she danced and she danced and She danced.

Back home, as the months rolled on in these women’s lives, every new morning seemed brighter. Every she still felt pain sometimes, but it wasn’t screaming at her the way it had before.

Because she had chosen to listen, her pain didn’t hog the stage. It just made guest appearances.

And when it apepared, she had new muscle she had built to greet it. Freeing herself more quickly every time. Accepting that her pain came to liberate her passion.

Her pain came to liberate her passion.

And now she was making love to life.
Living in a way she wasn’t told as a child, or at work, was possible.
Accepting her own power to create the life she wanted.
Finished with victim identity, complaining less.
She needed to discover this herself.
To reclaim her power to choose,
To be her own best friend.
To be her own best lover.
And she did.

And that is how She reclaimed her life.

Lately, even more than “How are you?” or “God, I really wish…,” what I often hear people voicing is complaints about Trump. Comments like, “What a jerk! Did you hear that he… XYZ!?!” and “Can we just get rid of him?” as if that would solve all of our problems.

Despite our shared disdain about the extraordinarily wounded, unwise soul holding the top office in our nation, I’ll admit I sometimes find these comments obnoxious, because it seems people are complaining more than doing something about it. I occasionally blurt, “Your upset makes total sense, and… How are you being the change you wish to see in the world?” No soul breathes well in embodied hypocrisy.

Yet you, dear Fred, know the deal in systems. If we don’t get rid of the root cause of a problem, we don’t get rid of the problem.

Our current U.S. president is like a huge blackhead on a human face, an explosive and revolting expression of illness beneath the skin. Eat real food. Hydrate more. Move your body. Those are some real solutions.

Not: Keep your attention on the giant zit.

Yes, listen to its message.
No, don’t waste your precious life force staring extensively at the problem’s most glaring symptoms.

You left your body in 2003, and I can still hear your voice. Right now you’re asking me, with its ever-comforting, calm and patient tone, to elucidate the inner dreamer I may have forgotten: Dear neighbor, Jessica, what do you wish for?

I wish humanity would stand together in global meditation and reincarnate someone like you to be President. Maybe it’s Gaia. She would be female; humans are naturally matriarchal. Ready to reincarnate and put on a red dress for your 98th birthday?

My deeper, truer wish is that we’d all embrace our human beauty so completely — as fully as you did while you were alive — that the world would feel like a very different place overnight.

We might all bask more and worry less.

We might slow down to revel in kind words someone offers, letting ourselves emotionally and physiologically benefit from this goodness, grateful to be greeted by someone who says, “I love you” or “Thank you for being a good friend.”

We might write more letters, conveying kindness we learned from mentors like you and keeping our country’s excellent postal system alive.

This morning when I remembered that today is your birthday, my heart took the reins and led me to light-up breakfast with the sound of your voice. Suddenly my rainbow chard and my daughter’s toast were buttered with the genius music, masterful piano and evergreen wisdom of your songs, songs imprinted in my childhood mind.

Tears, here now. My heart has tears of such deep joy for you, dear Fred.

To me, you feel immortal, like a living saint whose divine Light tucked itself inside the souls of humanity. I am one of many-thousands of people whose lives are still lit, by you.

Thank you for imprinting me with the ever-kind presence of your soul and music. Your dedication to children and goodness imprinted me so deeply that I never buried my inner child. And I know it’ll make you smile when I tell you that she, my inner child, is alive and well, most readily lit-up by dancing and when I’m in the presence of a child. As for dancing, you fed this massive passion by exposing my childhood senses to genius piano played by Johnny Costa.

I ask you to reincarnate, in part, as a response to the horror of surfaced pedophilia among so-called leaders. You are the opposite. You revere The Child, like all of our true selves do.

Why wouldn’t we? Children are the most tender and precious expressions of life in our own species; they are most outrageously deserving of Love.

It’s quite possible that this dream of mine will come true, that a reborn version of you will soon appear to bring large-scale, Love-based leadership to our soulfully dehydrated world. Meanwhile, as a human collective, may we all dream-up the leadership within our own selves that comes from Love, so that we can co-create a world—

• with abundant joy in music and friendship,

• where neighbors and drivers say kind words to each other,

• that honors the innocent, noble and delightful spirit of The Child,

• of healthy rhythms and long walks that let us bask in nature’s beauty and magic.

Mister Rogers, you and I are native to the same place. It’s the land of childlike glee, kind simplicity, friendly mailmen, piano and rainbows.

That’s not a childish thing to see or say, but yes, it’s childlike, and there’s nothing that puts a bigger smile on my soul. To embody the full range of our human experience—

• from the kindness that cradles new life and elderhood

• to the splendor of ecstatically embodied Eros

• with integrity holding it all…

I wish for humanity to feel the full range, from anger to glee, from heartbreak to communion, so that we can choose mindfully, to co-create a world that feels like a modern Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.

There’s no human on Earth who I feel more love for, than you.

There’s no human who has ever invited me to feel more of the Love that I am, than you. You and my daughter. Yes, you and my very own child, my Helena Beam, who gets embarrassed when I show my inner-Mister-Rogers in public, yet openly marvels at the fact that she got me as her mother in this life — when it’s just the two of us.

I am endlessly enamored with you, and so grateful I was born at a time when you were so popular on TV. I wish for more of your kind, your divine genius and spark, for all humans today. Those led by our wounds, and those led by our freedom.

On your. birthday, I want you to know: Your legacy is alive and well.

Forever devoted to all the things you were, too~
Jessica Maxine

Subscribe now

For those wanting to feel the buzz of divine sweetness that Mister Rogers and pianist Johnny Costa shared, here are a few of my favorite childhood songs. Links are to TIDAL, which is the app I now use given some of Spotify’s icky choices.

♥️ on being alive… It’s Such a Good Feeling
🩵 a favorite for the past 10 years… It’s You I Like
🤎 theme song from the show… Won’t You be My Neighbor
🩵 for comfort in these times… Sometimes People Are Good
♥️ and perhaps my favorite one ever… Then Your Heart is Full of Love, lyrics below

Share

Then Your Heart is Full of Love

Written by Josie Carey Franz (Lyrics) and Fred Rogers (Music) | © 1984, Fred M. Rogers

When your heart has butterflies inside it,
Then your heart is full of love.
When your heart feels just like overflowing,
Then your heart is full of love.

Love is fragile as your tears.
Love is stronger than your fears.

When your heart can sing another’s gladness,
Then your heart is full of love.
When your heart can cry another’s sadness,
Then your heart is full of love.

Love is fragile as your tears.
Love is stronger than your fears.

When your heart beats for a special someone,
Then your heart is full of love.
When your heart has room for everybody,
Then your heart is full of love.

I’ll pause here to ask: If you had seen me parked illegally, how would you have responded? Would you have given me a mild dirty look? Screamed at me with anger? Or would you have ignored me, since my parking job was quick and on a quiet street, and perhaps it didn’t bother you at all?

A man in a blue car was speedily rounding the curb, becoming quite upset that I had broken the rules. He stopped his car right next to mine and yelled, “You idiot! That’s illegal! Are you trying to hit me?” Although it was quite unpleasant to be yelled at, I stayed calm. He was, after all, on the legal side of the road. He had a point, which he chose to deliver as he pulled away, vehemently shouting, “Fuck you!” with his left arm lifted out the window, his tall middle finger asserted toward the sky. I realized it could’ve been much worse. He could have had a gun.

For about 10 minutes I felt like I was wearing an uncomfortably stiff charcoal gray coat that would soon fall off. I was astounded that somebody could take a relatively small act, and turn it into a blood-boiling, hateful expulsion. I took deep breaths about the fact that this type of self-inflicted drama is common these days — more than ever, people feel like human matchsticks, waiting for a chance to expel their pent-up rage. We’re all swimming in waters of anxiety.

When my upset dissolved, I mostly felt grateful that I don’t hate myself enough to yell that way — to let obscenities press intensely through my throat, splattering the hateful energy I feel, onto another human being.

It felt good to have enough self worth to not only refrain from yelling back at this man, but to not even feel the desire to. His rage came from hurt, inside of him. I’m not here to add more hurt to the world.

These days there is endless temptation to house our attention in one of fear’s many landscapes. We are constantly bombarded with scary messages about war, genocide, kidnapping, rape, climate change, global warming, fascist government. It is reasonable to feel deeply upset, including fiercely angry, about these things. But let’s not stay there for long, abandoning the goodness that wants to be lived. Let’s not forget to be grateful.

Gratitude cannot be overdone.

If you’re breathing, you can be grateful.

If you have eyes to watch birds fly in mesmerizing flocks that dissolve your despair in three seconds…

Gratitude has no ceiling.

Yesterday was my 51st birthday. This year, there’s more that I’m grateful for than there is that I want. I already have all the most important things in abundance — incomparably, the most valuable is Love.

I am grateful for a living, healthy child whose heart has rooted my existence in this rainbow-laden world.

As a lifelong prolific personal narrative writer and intimacy devotee, I revel in the joy of sharing my inner world with others with you. I see your hearts soften when you read my writing. You see yourselves in my stories, you feel more love for yourselves and your own lives through my words, your inhales and exhales expand. I like having that impact in your life. Thank you for letting me into it.

Today I’ll share three of my top gratitudes, as an invitation for you to tune into yours.

1. I am grateful to know that the ‘reality’ I experience is a projection — that the man who yelled at me from his car was an invitation for me to flex two huge human muscles: forgiveness — the greatest thing Yeshua taught, and Christic Consciousness teaches — and being the change we wish to see in the world. I am grateful to decline getting stuck in the swamp of self hatred, seeing the yelling man as ‘the demon’ and acting like I’m right and superior. I am grateful to refuse the ‘they’ mentality, that is such a temptation these days; our current U.S. President is good at triggering this; I decline. Love feels better. I am grateful not to rob myself of the creative possibilities alive in each moment, by focusing on wrong, bad, “them”.

   

2. I am grateful to feel seen by others, even as I accept that I am the most important person who needs to see me. (True for us all.) Feeling seen by another is a huge gift. As a lover of human connection, this reciprocity delights me. I am grateful for these words from one of my favorite writers (Museguided), a Paris-based, masterful weaver of words, that left me feeling so seen. Exchanges like this remind me that we are each an irreplaceable and undeniably beautiful hue in the rainbow of humanity.

   

3. I’m grateful to see pain as a gift. It is clearly and fundamentally a message. Freedom comes from choosing to see it as a gift. Not to want more of it —I’m clear about that — but to see that it is a gift. It comes to show us somewhere love is wanted, needed, from ourselves. From our own perception. And if we listen… we’ll hear and feel ways to respond and the pain will go away. How cool that this is the world we live in! Where pain doesn’t come to stay, unless we refuse to listen to the invitation it is here to bring us.

   Subscribe now

There are so many calls for love in our midst today. It’s like we’re in a pool where the bubbles of pain that won’t stop rising from the depths of the water, cover the surface of the pool around us. Another one, another one, another one… Endless calls for Love in all this pain.

Since we all live in a plane of duality, where love and fear are the great polarities, clarifying our perception is the way to freedom.

Seeing clearly brings freedom.

Yeshua taught this as forgiveness — not through the ‘wrongdoing’ lens called sin, but instead through the clear perception of Love, seeing that humans can only do one of two things — express love or call for love. Every painful behavior, including the man who yelled at me out his car window, is a call for Love.

No, it’s not my job to have a conversation with him about where his self hatred began… Did your dad abuse you? Was your mom a coke addict who died when you were four?

My job is simply to be the Love I am, expressing my authentic truth in the 8-billion-hue human rainbow.

Man-Who-Yelled-at-Me…

My job was to simply choose, in the heat of your screaming moment, to not yell back at you. To choose instead to be grateful that I have resolved enough self hatred, to not yell back. And to swiftly move to gratitude. Heck, thank you for helping me reconsider where I park next time I make a 30-second stop. Maybe you’re an angel in disguise who came to help me avoid a crash next time.

When we hold hateful perspectives about others inside our own awareness, we are clogging our own pipes. What’s possible in our lives becomes blocked by our unwillingness to forgive.

Share

Notes on Forgiveness

Last month I acknowledged I’ve been holding a grudge against someone for years, and I finally accepted that this was my problem, not his. So I wrote an undelivered letter in my journal — a letter of forgiveness.

For my birthday, I invite you to write an undelivered letter of forgiveness in your journal. Gift yourself with this powerful act. Then if you want to, rip out the page and burn it when you’re done.

Where is a clog inside of you, where your pipe is grimy with disdain for someone else? Where are you letting your unique divine light be blocked by staying behind your clouded lens? Here are a few prompts to support your writing:

• I have been holding (resentment, a grudge, disgust…) about you because _________.

• Today I choose to forgive you, accepting that you are the way you are. (I see that you were doing the best you could… You were trying to ________ and _______…)

• I choose (to keep you in my life in _____ way) or (to create space between us because it’s healthier for me to ______ instead of being close to you)

• Thank you for helping me to see _______ (how I was making up that you were wrong instead of accepting you the way you are and making my choices, accordingly)

I’ll close by giving thanks to my mom and dad.

Thank you for bringing me into this world. I’m so grateful you’re still alive! And I’m grateful you are willing to have uncomfortable conversations with me about medical procedures, pain relief in the case of an emergency, and cremation. I am grateful I to be preventing regret, after you die. And I’m grateful to offer my lifelong art of writing from the heart, as a memoirist for elders whose children want them to feel lovingly accompanied in their later years, who want their stories told so their legacy is remembered long into the future.

Share

Celebrating 5 years since near-death and 51 years being alive~
always with Love,
💛 Jessica

In honor of Mia, and the living angels who attended to me for four days in the Neurosurgery ICU — nurses, anesthesiologists, rehab assistants and Dr. Hou, my neurosurgeon — all I want to do right now is give my readers gifts to feed your joy, in celebration of my ‘second life.’

I share my story and these photos to invite you to be fully alive, while you’re breathing. Every life ends one day, and the truth is, you don’t know how long you’ve got. If I’m wrong, perhaps you’d like to read my piece from 2024, When You’re About to Die.

Tonight I’ll dance. It feels good to be fully alive.

If you could use a boost to inspire your full aliveness, here’s a piece I wrote to share the spark near-death gave me, Only Now Alive.

Please enjoy one of these gifts or all four! And feel free to share them with friends. Love is boundless!

Share

They’re up for three days, prices return to normal on Thursday 2/19/26.

• Feed human connection with a guide for a letter to a friend

• Heal fear in your life with a guide for a letter to your pain

• Revive your inner dreamer with a guide for crafting your vision

• Light up your life with a mini coaching session and guide

It was a huge gift to see the golden Light on the other side of what we call death. Below is a piece I wrote nine weeks later. We say those who’ve gone there have "‘died” when actually, they are free. My uncle Cheo (1997), ever-spicy Gregory (2024), darling Mia (2026), and all those who have ventured away from their bodies are living in a field of Light we cannot recognize from this one we’re in now.

It is us who grieve, still feeling the gorgeous and longing-filled grip of living. And that’s OK. It is Love, longing for itself.

Death, once we see it, is not an end.

with Love for you always~
🫀 Jessica

Subscribe now

During this season of sexy dinner dates and bouquets of red roses, many of us are reflecting on our life’s landscape in the arena of Love — specifically the kind of Love that comes with romantic partnership and all things erotic.

Most of us are either somewhat or extremely unsatisfied.

A few of us are deeply satisfied, and I am grateful to be in this boat.

Many humans are lonely, heartbroken, or in a relationship that we’re tolerating because it feels too hard to leave.

But Love goes galaxies deeper than the romantic or sexual realms, and that’s where this question comes from: How does Love make Love?

Since I was 8 years old, Love has been my religion and these thoughts I’m sharing today aren’t ‘mine’ necessarily. They come through me, as someone who long ago gave myself over to the greatest superpower — Love — for it to ‘use’ me in service of itself.

So let’s ask Love how it makes Love.

Wanna hear something wild? We actually can’t have more Love.​ Every person on Earth, every second we’re alive, has all the Love we’d ever need. ✨

The catch?
We don’t see it.
We are blinded to it.
Our eyes are glazed.
So we don’t feel it.

And therefore it cannot seem to be our reality, so what we see instead is some composition of a life that appears as suboptimal, hungry, barren, less-than-Love-filled, lacking.

Pain only heals when its root cause is resolved. So what is the cause of our inability to see the fullness of Love’s existence in our own lives?

We have forgotten that...

Love is who we are. And when we forget that we actually are Love, everything we think, feel, say and do is impacted by that lost memory.

Picture yourself in a hurry to get to a meeting, you’re running late and now you can’t find your keys. Shit, you forgot where you put them. At that moment, you don’t climb in the bath tub to read a book. You scramble around asking, Where the heck did I put my keys? And until you find them, your heart rate’s sped-up, your breath is shallow, your attention is laser focused on finding your keys.

Share

That’s what’s up on Earth right now.

We are scurrying around, swimming in anxiety, doom-scrolling and blaming something or someone outside of ourselves, for our problems. Pretending the answers are outside of ourselves: I need a drink! Or a smoke, or new shoes, or 45 minutes on social media looking for someone else to give me the answers… some sort of escape to take me away from accepting that the answers are inside of me.

We are acting like victims when we are actually co-creators, lovers, with The Divine.

We are busy projecting pictures of forgetting, from our own inner screenplays whose scripts are inherently miswritten. Collectively, we are so tired of lookin’ for Love in all the wrong places… 🎶

Love makes more Love by seeing through its own eyes.

By doing this, it projects a reality, a world, of more Love. Ultimately, when enough of us choose to see through clear eyes, the eyes of Love, we will see a very different reality than the one we see now.

• People won’t be enslaved at work or for the color of their skin.

• Transportation modalities will evolve beyond our current capacity to understand.

• Mother Earth will be respected in ways we now only glimpse in small subcultures.

• Women won’t run around altering their already perfect bodies and faces because we will accept that we were all born with inexplicable beauty.

• Children and elders will be universally revered.

When we see through Love’s eyes, we make more Love. Hallmark cards, diamonds and bouquets of roses become unattractive because — when our pores and every inhale are kissed with the unparalleled embrace of Divinity, who needs those things?

If you are tired of looking for Love and ready to see, feel and actually experience it more in your life — ✨

1) Choose to accept that Love is who you are.

Bold . Simple. Decide to accept that Love is who you are. Write it down with your pen, on paper, to affirm your decision: Love is who I am. Simply choose. When your head starts to get in the way, tell it you love it and you’re making a decision and don’t need its input right now. For this one, your heart and soul are in the lead. Done? Done. ✔️

Now, let’s reframe the original question to make it more accessible. How do you, as the energy of Love, embodied, create more Love in your life?

2) Cultivate inner stillness.

Be still and decide to see it. Another slice of simple genius, far beyond what most people are currently willing to choose. Stop running around. Pull that “I’m so busy, my plate is so full” record off the record player. S-l-o-w d-o-w-n. Stop defaulting to check your cell phone. Be s-p-a-c-i-o-u-s, within yourself.

No encyclopedia or spiritual teacher can give it to you. The Source of all the Love you’d ever want to feel or know, is inside of you.

My current personal practice with this involves tuning my attention inwardly — from the habitual waterfall mode I’ve been in all my life, effusively expressing Love’s fierce delight with the passion of a Puerto Rican tiger — d-o-w-n into the golden pool of Divine Light in my core. 💫

Find a visualization, a simple daily practice, that works for you. This is something I work with coaching clients on; reach out about coaching if you want to step-up your game with one-on-one support.

Globally respected spiritual teacher and author Eckhart Tolle teaches, “The power of manifestation comes out of the space of awareness. The more you connect to the depths of who you are, the more empowered you become.”

Connection with your deeper self, the nature of your being {Love} cannot occur in hurry. It is born in Being.

Mindful. ✨
Spacious. ✨
Presence. ✨

3) Have a rigorous relationship with the truth.

Your truth. Live with unparalleled authenticity. Eventually, as you keep telling more truth, at the bottom of it all, you’ll see — only Love. You came here, into this life, this body, at this time, to be one-of-a-kind you. Trying to live someone else’s truth will never bring you freedom.

In my entire life, nothing has more noticeably and powerfully impacted the beauty, joy and depth I experience, than this. Love makes Love by connecting with itself.

Over the years when I see friends stock up on food for their pantry in case of utter disaster, somehow my gut hasn’t felt pulled to do that. While they may be honoring their truth by stocking up on food, my truth is different. Instead, I’ve felt called to feed closer relations with people growing and selling real, good food, roasting their own coffee, people whose names I know, who actively weave our community with Love, thereby building resilience. Sequoia trees got this memo long ago. I’m not saying “I’m right, this is the way” — Love speaks through each of us beyond the land of “right and wrong” — I simply share this as one way I’ve chosen to live my truth, a tiny human life echo of the wisdom embodied by Sequoia trees.

Breathe, speak, embody and tell your truth millisecond after millisecond. Not necessarily running around screaming, “I really like the color of your car!” or “We actually are the United States of America, we are not Divided!” but — by far most importantly — living and telling your truth to yourself. In your journal, in your human relationships, while you make coffee and wash your face.

Those are the top three ways to infuse your existence with Love’s delectable splendor.

I’ve been writing about Love all my life, and I’m utterly delighted that it’s now being honored openly so often, with the latest huge glaring exhibit appearing at the Super Bowl. What!? Love on that stage!? At last. “The only thing more powerful than hate is Love,” read the billboard at the end of Benito Bad Bunny‘s halftime performance.

Again, to heal pain, a problem, let’s look for its cause.
What is the cause of hatred for others?
Hatred of the self.

When we want to heal a thumb with its tip chopped off — yes, I did that last weekend, cutting garlic for breakfast — we look for the cause of the injury and intend to prevent it from reoccurring. The cause? Lack of presence. I wasn’t paying attention as my thumb snuggled up against the garlic clove, underneath the knife’s sharp blade. Clearly I needed another reminder to s-l-o-w d-o-w-n and be present. 😮‍💨

To heal hatred, we must look for its cause.

Deeply seated fear is the cause of hatred. Fear that we’re separate from each other and The Divine. Love’s illuminated eyes cannot see a reality into being, that contains hatred. Wherever we are unwilling to forgive — and yes, forgiveness was Yeshua’s greatest teaching — we make a home for hatred in ourselves.

Connect one dot to the next and that’s what’s up today on Earth, we have let fear’s trajectory dominate our human experience, so we are now seeing the face of fear globally, peeking and staring through our days.

Fear has surfaced to be healed with the only thing that can heal it: Love. And that is who you are. The most impactful choice you can make today, to make the world a better place, is to be the Love you are.

I stand beside Bad Bunny, who passionately invited us all, gazing intently into the camera’s eyes to invite the collective to: Believe in yourself.

How does Love make Love?

It simply is.

Remembering itself, it simply exists, in acceptance of itself.

This is a choice you make when you’re ready to see through Love’s eyes, ready to let the projections you see as your ‘reality’ transform into something more beautiful. More Love-filled. More of a match for who you really are.

It’s nice to have you here,
🩵

Share

P.S. Before I go, I’ll take a moment to honor the romantic, the erotic, the intimate partnership realm. ❤️‍🔥 On Valentine’s Day and every day, I shake my head in awe of what is possible here, giving thanks for the man who entered my life last year. Anyone who doubts that an epic romantic partnership is possible, listen: It’s possible to find someone who meets you, sees you, delights in you, deeply respects you, challenges and grow you gracefully. Here are two inspiring quotes from spiritual and psychedelic artist Alex Grey.

“When we first fall in love we can be amazed with how perfect the beloved is for us, the answer to our prayer. The beloved can become a portal to the infinite because love is infinite and the beloved is the Sacred Mirror that shares this Divine energy. With the beloved, we step outside the safety of our own skin and open our heart to communicate soul to soul. This ultimate overlapping of souls comes from a deep compassion and respect for the other while celebrating the synchronistic journey that brought you together. The path of love is the supreme gift of the cosmos. Dr. Albert Hofmann called the experience of love ‘the highest transmutation of sunlight’.”

“A relationship succeeds when obstacles are met with communication and resolution. A relationship flourishes when we take the beloved as our teacher. Shared goals create a transformative, interwoven path.”

Ten years ago, I saw Love’s wisdom dancing here and there, in Rumi poems and my baby daughter’s eyes. Today, its voice is pressing up against us every minute, in gentle whispers and Mama Bear screams, patiently asking our collective consciousness to accept that it is Who We Are — all of us. Each moment, we’re given a glaring choice whose essence is: Love or fear? Oneness or division? Wellness or suffering? We are now called to revive our memory and accept grand and simple truths, like...

Deep breaths are profoundly beneficial.

Unseen, immeasurable things are ready for our attention, our company. Energies, power, Spirit, beings invisible to the naked eye who offer support and protection.

Our bodies are far more intelligent than we give them credit for.

Romantic allure can live long past than the honeymoon phase.

And healthy friendships can turn storms into rainbows.

Which friends leave you feeling seen for who you are, not just what you do or say? Friends who challenge and motivate you to reshape your own perception, instead of staying stuck inside the shell your old seas crafted you into. Friends who climb over life’s steep peaks alongside you, exhaling after the climb with sweaty, sunlit smiles of thanks for the storms you’ve weathered together? How grateful are you for those beings of human gold, and have you told them “thank you” lately?

Last autumn on a call with a coaching client, she swooned over the book, Anam Ċara by John O’Donohue. Wow — this book is a true treasure, you can buy it here (at an independent bookseller, please limit/stop buying from Amazon as they fund ICE and other fear-based, therefore divisive, things). Anam ċara is an ancient Celtic phrase from Gaelic meaning “soul friend,” referring to a deep spiritual bond with someone who understands you truly, without masks, offering compassion, guidance, and a sense of “home,” a connection that transcends physical separation or conventional definitions of friendship or romance.

Here’s a poem from the book, to feed you as you lean into the lift, the Light, friendship can provide.

I’ll close with a little gift to help you grow more fertile fields inside your people-scape: a short guide for writing a note to a good friend. You’ll find it here.

Ultimately, we are each asked to be our own best friend; after all, we’re the only one we’ve wholly got from birth ‘til death.

And we’re asked to be our own best lover too, but I’ll get into that more in an upcoming post. For now, may this guide support you to invest your attention on friendships that lift, enliven and enthuse you, just the way you are.

If you’re looking for a great place to find a variety of well-made writing paper, greeting cards, pens and other sensually wondrous things to support your letter writing practice, you can order online from my favorite such shop, FLAX Art.

Subscribe now

Share

It’s a short flight on a sunny day, down the state of California. There’s no typhoon happening, like there was when I flew to India in 2006. And yet, my handwriting is unusually messy, my palms are sweaty, and I am present to a vivid degree of fear in my body and mind. Hmm… my writing just got extra messy, when the relatively mild up-and-down jolts escalated and the pilot announced we’d be hitting a few bumpy spots along the way. His voice was calm and clear, no state of alarm conveyed, yet still… I write, to ‘make love’ to my own state of fear.

Chances are, we will land on the runway in San Diego on time, and I’ll get to see one of my favorite people this weekend, my dear friend Pete, who I came to visit.

Chances are, in two days I’ll return home to see the greatest human Love of my life — my daughter Helena — and our irresistibly affectionate dog Jerry.

Chances are, I’ll get to keep earning a living doing what I came into this life to do: illuminate the beauty of the human spirit by seeing through the eyes of Love.

Yet those are chances.
They’re not guarantees.

If there’s a 99.99% chance that will all happen — and I accept that this is true — then there’s still a .01% chance it won’t… that instead, somehow this plane or the sky will do something else and this life I’ve lived for almost 51 years will end.

I clearly remember the first few days after I got home from India in the autumn of 2006. One afternoon, I went walking with a colleague named John Carlon, who shared my reverence for rivers. John noticed my heightened state of aliveness after rafting a dangerous stretch of the Zanskar River, headwaters of the Ganges, and he told me that he, too, intended to feel that alive with his one precious life.

He said that, in order to support himself to live up to that high bar, “I do something every day that scares me.“

I understood what he meant.

Being fully alive feels really good.

My level of aliveness was fertilized by a monthlong experience of courageously rafting a very cold Himalayan river, and flying through a typhoon that led to an emergency landing at a Chinese military airport. Not to mention, walking the streets of New Delhi with air so dirty I couldn’t be outside for more than an hour without feeling sick, thinking, Good God, I am fortunate to have clean air to breathe back home. Back home, bright beams of gratitude-lit presence streamed from my eyes and fingertips. Before then, I had never felt such all-encompassing thanks for being alive.

“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” Howard Thurman

It took another 17 years before I realized—

Humans need pain to wake up. What do I mean by ‘wake up’?

Being fully alive, with our soul’s eyes wide open, living our own unique truth.

Vibrationally, energetically, pulsing with aliveness. Breathing the vitality we are gifted at birth. Living from the electric sensitivity of a baby‘s face when she or he feels joy. Moving in a state of reverence, accepting that—

Life actually IS

an extraordinarily

beautiful

gift.

It was 2 1/2 years ago in 2023 when I was hiking up a hill and heard the words making love to fear come through me. I had been asking — within, asking the Light inside of me, not asking AI or a spiritual encyclopedia — do humans need pain to wake up? These words were offered to me, making love to fear, as part of the answer.

In other words, yes, we do. As it stands, humans need pain to wake up. This couldn’t be more obvious given the state of the world today.

Let’s tell the truth. Yes, we do. And—

Love is the

only

way

through.

I could’ve driven to Southern California today. It’s an 8-hour drive and people often prefer to fly. But flying takes almost as long, with the shuttle and airport security lines and waiting in the lobby.

Today I chose to fly because I have fear to love, and every time I show up to do that, my lifescape opens up to greater awe, greater wow, greater joy.

Yes, chances are, this plane ride will smooth out again after this current set of bumps, soaring safely south over the beaming golden light of the California sky.

Chances are, the pilot will eat dinner with his family tonight after another day on the job. A well paid job he’s proud of, that makes little kids smile when he tells them what he does for a living.

Chances are, inside the pilot’s heart, there is a vision. He will brush his teeth tonight once he gets home, safely, just like he’s done thousands of times. And his little kids will joyfully pounce on him tomorrow morning once they see he’s home from work.

Chances are, the woman sitting next to me is unconsciously coping with some form of her own fear, as she eats candied gummy worms after eating a bag of M&Ms after eating popcorn after eating the bag of Maui Onion pretzels passed out by the stewardess. Her choices are like mine were, for most of my life while I lived with a food and sugar addiction, coping with my own pain — an inability to choose sweetness, comfort, and pleasure in healthy ways — before a brain tumor came to scream through my head, inviting me to wake the fuck up.

For me, this fear, of flying on an airplane… is up.
It wants my attention.
It wants me to fully embrace it — to make love to fear.

After all, that’s the spirit of what I do for a living. It’s what I guide my clients into: the repetitious building of self-love muscle, the willingness to tell the truth enough to feel the passion their pain came to liberate. To embody the knowing that—

The Love inside of them is what will heal their fear, one sky-bump, romantic rejection, lonely night or empty wallet at a time.

Share

As this plane took off today, I quietly repeated these words over and over again: Multiple redundancies, multiple redundancies, multiple redundancies…

I heard them just a few weeks ago from a man named Rene who works with private aircraft pilots in an office near my apartment. We frequent the same café, and I had seen him there many times with a group of mostly men, dressed in snazzy suits, with accents from all over the world (Italian, ooh la laaa…).

As Rene waited for his cappuccino, I felt an urge to introduce myself. “You’re not with your entourage today,” I said.

He smiled. “They’re here once a month.”

I asked if I could share something with him that’s kind of personal. (Yes, that’s me: Hi. Let’s go deep.) He said, “Sure.”

So I told him about my fear of flying and the 10 minutes that followed were unforgettable. He said many people are afraid of flying, and that airplanes today are engineered with “multiple redundancies.” He kindly tried to soothe me in a surprisingly charmed moment of “Hello stranger, nice to meet you, can I tell you about my greatest fear?”

When I get both tears and chills within a short conversation, that’s a holy moment.

I knew Rene’s wisdom and gentle way of sharing it were expressions of an evolutionary moment for my soul. He told me planes these days are engineered with layers of safety that make it very unlikely they’ll crash, with “catastrophe“ being the only likely chance.

I believe him. And I’m gonna ask if I can interview him this year because, as he tells me, fear of flying is quite common. And—

I am here to love humanity into being eyes-wide-open in awe of the beauty of its own spirit.

And so, dear fear…

I’ve got your number. I’m at your door. My Piscean whale wings are riding through your wind gusts in the sky. And I’m gonna love you until you melt in the arms of God’s golden honey. Meanwhile, the plane just began its descent. San Diego, here I come.

---

Update, one week later —

The 99.99% chance won out and I made it home. Our plane landed safely and I had one of the most spectacular weekends of my life, visiting my friend and basking in the soft San Diego winter sun. Now back in Northern California, I will soon get to rise from my bed where I write, make breakfast for my daughter and give thanks for another day in this extraordinary gift called being alive. If you are a woman who’s ready to embrace your fear and melt it in the presence of your Love, reach out to see if my coaching is a match for you.

Two months ago, I came across a piece you wrote called Erotic Decisions. What is that? I thought. I figured I would read two sentences and stop there, assuming its writer saw Eros through the narrow lens most of humanity looks through — one that equates Eros with sex.

Instead, the first paragraph pulled me into a stream whose next bend I couldn’t wait to feel. Every word in its flow kept me there. Now after reading more of your pieces, you’re one of my favorite writers, in the company of Rumi, Robin Wall Kimmerer and Rob McFarlane, Shel Silverstein and John O’Donohue. Oh, and myself. Yes, me.

If we’re not enamored with our own art, why spend time crafting it? If we aim to be the change we wish to see in the world, and we want a world where people are in Love with our art, then let’s celebrate it with joy. Let’s be enraptured in communion with our art, whether we are writers, dancers, sculptors, architects, pianists or something else.

That’s just it. Your Erotic Decisions piece speaks to a life outside the illusion of safety. Not a life that is reckless or irresponsible, simply one that is fully alive. Vividly, nonnegotiably alive. One where we don’t just post self-love memes on social media but we actually show self-love in public — we live it.

Your piece left me feeling more seen for the way I’ve lived my life than I ever knew possible.

You write,

Eros, in its ancient, Platonic sense, is the force that binds the soul to the world, that moves us toward beauty, mystery, and becoming. It is not reducible to sex, though it may include it. It is a metaphysical orientation: the decision, over and over again, to seek intensity over numbness, expansion over contraction, intimacy over control. And that decision (sometimes a whisper, sometimes a roar) is how life begins, and how it deepens.

You write about a way of living based in feeling. I’m reminded of insight from my 23-year clairgenius mentor, Tom Carpenter: The most powerful thing a human can do is feel. You write,

To live erotically is to reclaim the authority of feeling as intelligence, not as whim – the intelligence of the body, the psyche, the imagination. [...] To make an erotic decision is to be willing to lose the self you were, for the self that might be born in the act of choosing.

Since birth, my lead brain has been my heart. As a child, my closest friends were Mr. Rogers, Ernie and Bert, who brought kinship to me through the 1980s TV screen in my San Anselmo living room. These were friends rooted in the heart, who embodied and championed what I felt most powerfully in life: Love.

Although my parents, siblings and friends at school were loving, these TV characters conveyed how central Love is to everything. Their company felt like the invisible friend I rode tricycles with at preschool — Yeshua — not the Christ associated with the church, but the being of Light who I played with, the universal Christic Consciousness who taught me that forgiveness is not based in a perception of sin, it is based in a perception of Love.

Love is the safe bed where Eros finds both passion and rest.

Love is the feeling that widens the wings of the heart, so Eros can breathe.

When someone feels Love’s fullness within their own being, Eros has been alit, engaged, chosen — and it is aglow.

Subscribe now

In my early 20s, feeling the riveting splendor of Love’s power through music and dance, I declared Brazil as my “spirit country” since its music was lit with the ecstatic, primal, passionate fuel that I felt in my hips, hands and feet. Brazil is open with the potency of Eros.

Then in my early 30s while lobbying in Washington DC for the federal protection of wild rivers, I was raped. Yes, a woman whose last name means Rivers, working to protect the wild flow of nature’s feminine power, viscerally violated. Sick synchronicity. Out dancing with two girlfriends, a man bought us drinks. He was a pharmaceutical lobbyist and he drugged my martini. I woke up in his hotel room with no memory of what had happened between the bar’s dance floor and the taxi cab ride back to my hotel the next morning.

Before that, I had a clean-slate perception, somewhat woven with naïveté about sex and Eros. I knew that in the USA, many people had a perverse relationship with sex, clearly exhibited through high rates of rape, child molestation and porn addiction. Unless miracles ensue, we have a long way to go before the majority of our species becomes sexually well, finding true erotic beauty and fulfillment. But it wasn’t until it happened ‘to me’ that I looked close-up at our collective’s deeply wounded state of consciousness around Eros.

Through my 40s, I grew to understand that sex was only a sliver of Eros’ fullness, and that Eros was actually a way of life. You know it well, and you write about it very well. I breathed it, danced it, and even channeled Erosful words one day while hiking, that led to an entire framework for my coaching: Making Love to Fear.

Making love to fear is not about romanticizing fear or kissing sharks. It’s about relational intimacy. Fear softens when it’s met, not managed. Nothing to fix, just something to feel and be enlivened by.

Share

Alongside my own path of embracing pain and fear, when I reached the surprisingly wondrous age of 50, your writing left me feeling radically seen. In this way, today you’re in the company of my coach Charles, a master relationship coach. And my man and partner, Lyle. And my soul sister Kirsten and soul brother, Pete. This ever-changing landscape of close relations is where we can love and be loved as our full authentic selves, knowing change is the only constant in this human realm.

It tickles me that I’ve never met you in person, nor do I need to, to feel so seen by you. Many of your readers feel this way about your writing. How do your words come to you? I bet lots of your readers would revel in a piece about that.

As a prolific lifelong letter writer — an artist of penned intimacy — I often ‘hear’ words while I’m simply being, in my body, feeling not thinking. Hiking up a hill, dancing, laying in bed dreaming or curled up next to my man after blissful communion.

Last summer, the most memorable words channeled through me were The Eros I Breathe. Yes, I breathe air, and…

Air is what my lungs breathe. What I breathe is Eros.

So many women long for deep connection with a partner. My gut is clear that when we consciously honor the Eros within our own beings, our best-match partner is more likely to arrive. Or our existing partnership advances its intelligence, offering unexpected novelty, communion and the renewed shimmer of affectionate delight. Cultivating an upleveled landscape of Eros within myself helped lead me to My Man, the one who feels like Home, who happens to also be a writer. We ponder co-authoring a book called The Eros We Breathe. Yet as with every book I’ve ever written but not assembled into a paper package called a book, this one’s being lived-written, by my life. It may land in a book one day. If someone else takes the title from here, so be it. Words belong to no one.

The way I live belongs to me.
The way you live belongs to you.
And the way we live, you and me…

The way of Eros belongs to anyone who chooses it for their own life’s way. Now. And again, in another now.

Your writing honors this.

Your writing invites and ignites a world that is aflame with aliveness.

Your writing soothes my greatest heartbreak — how asleep we are, as a collective.

Since childhood, I’ve done my best to love humanity. I have taken risks and made messes, fumbled and fallen and felt 100 broken hearts, all unsurprising given the courage the heart can require.

Today, my deepest longing is to see human consciousness illuminated, from the full range of its gleeful inner child, to its fierce embodied Eros, to its divine golden center. A species lit-up by the full range of living.

Your writing invites us to this place and way. We are engaged in a reclamation of what Eros means, declining our own self oppression, choosing to take Eros out of the small red velvet box we kept in the bedroom closet for only special occasions.

My writing uses simple words, intentionally. Part of me wishes I was a sophisticated writer like you, but that voice is quickly quieted by this memory:

As a child with a heart whose pen wouldn’t pause its curves on paper, I instead consciously chose a simple, universally accessible way with words such as what was embodied by Fred Rogers. And Big Bird. Words our inner child can smile at. Words the masses can understand, just like the light of Christ is available to anyone — not confined to religion, and certainly not to any single religion.

If I never read one more piece of yours, I would remain forever grateful for you. Your writing is a poignant presence, inviting our asleepness to wake.

May this open letter to you serve as an invitation to readers, to Satisfy My Soul, as Bob Marley sang. Not to follow some external recipe prescribed by a world order based in fear, but to live-out the freedom that is the light inside of each of you — the sunshine of Love’s pure, enticing and galactic glow — in whatever version is true for you. As Mr. Rogers said, “Nobody else can live the life you live.”

For the women I coach, I seek to see into their potential with living Eros. I am curious about the dreams that live within them, for the sake of their fullest life’s inhabitation. I want every her to live the fullness of Eros that has her name on it.

Mr. Rogers said, “The connections we make in the course of a life—maybe that’s what heaven is.” Intimacy is certainly one form of Home, for me.

You write,

And that is the real measure of an erotic life: not how much you get, but how deeply you feel, how honestly you inhabit your own pulse.

“Everyone longs to be loved. And the greatest thing we can do is to let people know that they are loved and capable of loving.” — Mr. Rogers’ brilliance, again.

That brings us here, dear Tamara. My heart’s pen wanted to say: You are so loved. And so loving, in the way you give your fullest self to your writing. Thank you for sharing your masterful writing with us. You write,

…reclaiming erotic decision-making […] is the refusal to live in ways that anaesthetise the soul. It is the revolt of wanting, not as consumption, but as awakening. To choose the erotic is to orient the compass of your life by what makes your soul turn toward the light, not by what is expected or endorsed. And that can be excruciating. Because the erotic does not offer guarantees. Sometimes it leads us to joy. Sometimes to heartbreak. Often to both, simultaneously. But it always leads us somewhere real.

Thank you for the Eros you breathe. Even on different continents, we share the air.

Thank you for feeding the fire of your art. Your fire helps me ignite mine even more.

✨🫀✨
Jessica

There is another way. That’s what I decided to see and believe when I was diagnosed with a massive brain tumor in 2020. And that choice turned my life into a passionate, purposeful playground.

My brain tumor was an expression of my need for pain to help me wake up to the beauty and power of being in a human body. I asked for it — no, not specifically, I didn’t say, Hey Life, please give me a massive brain tumor — I asked for an experience to help me close a lifetime of mistreating my body through food and sugar addiction. And my prayers were answered. Today, I have a completely different relationship with my body and couldn’t be more grateful for my tumor, who I named Fidela, and all that she taught me.

Our bodies are impeccable communicators. They don’t know how to lie. They are always working on behalf of our souls. Even when we go to sleep, our bodies are working.

In the words of physician Zach Bush —

We live in a world that encourages us to fight symptoms. To numb the pain. To override the signal. But what if the body isn’t malfunctioning?

What if your fatigue, bloating, brain fog, or inflammation is a message, not a problem?

The human body is a relational system. It is constantly listening, adapting, and communicating across trillions of cells. When those cells become overwhelmed by stress, chemicals, poor sleep, or processed foods, they clearly respond.

Sometimes that response feels uncomfortable. But discomfort doesn’t mean dysfunction. It means something is trying to get your attention.

If you really listened to your body today, what is the message you would hear it say? Its message might be serious, like Eat real food, or I need sleep, seriously, do everything you can to help me sleep. Or it might be milder, like Keep up the great work, you are preventing disease with your loving choices.

The most powerful work we can do in the human experience is within. Leaning into Light is —

a choice to lean into the divine light within us, to listen, so that our lives move in the direction of wellness, beauty and awe, instead of sickness, horror and shame.

It’s one or the other; there’s no middle ground. Change is the only constant in this universe we call home. Your body knows the way. Where is it trying to lead you?

Share

Today is the 9-month anniversary of the bravest thing I’ve ever done, giving birth to a one-woman-show I performed on my 50th birthday, Making Love to Fear. In celebration, I’m offering the film for $4, which is 1/2 of the normal price, for 2 days (offer expires 12/10/25). This film is excellent for people facing addiction or chronic illness, healing trauma or heartbreak. As Rumi said in the 13th century, “Through love, all pain will turn to medicine.” My show is a Three Act performance, telling the story of how this has been true in my life. Here’s the link to watch it.

Tom listened as my big open heart shed tears about all the pain in the world. Child abuse, terrorism, violation of Mother Earth, homelessness. I asked him, “Why is there so much pain in the world today?”

With certainty, in his characteristically tender way, he replied, “Darlin’, we aren’t seeing more pain in the world today, we are simply seeing pain more.” He told me that —

Pain surfaces when it is ready to be, as Jesus taught, forgiven. Seen through the eyes of Love.

That was more than 25 years ago. Today my hope is to enrich the joy in your life by sharing three of the top ways I cope with all the pain and darkness that is surfaced in the world today.

Chances are, we will need to remind each other over and over again, that even as the darkness tempts us to self-oppress…

Joy
is always
available.

1) Revive your inner dreamer.

How active are you as a dreamer? In the words of Helen Keller, “The only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision.”

One of the causes of our current metacrisis is our collective neglect of imagination. We have forgotten to dream, instead choosing comfort and complacency over courage and adventure, reaction and blame over gracious response and responsibility.

The most inspired and inspiring people I know are active dreamers. In their minds’ eye, they sit in the seat next to the great Creator, however they define it, instead of taking a backseat and letting life happen, neglecting their role as powerful creators.

Ready to revive your inner dreamer? Pull out a piece of blank paper and colored pens or pencils, and start drawing out a Vision for one area of your life where you aren’t fully satisfied — where your inner dreamer has gone to sleep.

For support with this, check out the short video and guide I created for exploring your Vision. It’s called What She Sees but don’t be fooled; anyone who’s ready to spark-up your existence, can use it. Dream on, sweet sauce!

Share

2) Embody Joy

Seem obvious? If this was obvious, and we actually wanted to feel joy as a species, we wouldn’t be where we are today. We’d be seeing a lot more joy and a lot less pain.

Do you want to feel joy, feeding your interactions with its glow — reminding those whose paths you cross that, even in times of evident darkness, joy is still available?

The only thing you can control is your own state of mind. This darkness we’re seeing today is pain, presenting itself to be purified through the only thing that actually heals anything: Love.

Joy refuses to be dimmed by darkness.

What wraps you in an all-infused state of joy?

Is it dancing? Make a playlist of your Top 10 favorite dance tunes and let your body feel the joy of dancing wildly once a day.

Laying on your back in the sand, in awe of pelicans? Go do it.

Writing yourself a love letter, from the person you most wish could see how lovable you are?

My list of joys has throwing freestyle frisbee near the top. And kissing babies’ feet, hearing their unfiltered glee in response. And feeling gardenia petals on my lips as I inhale their glory.

3) Reclaim Village.

Village is community, based in Love. Being together. Taking care of ourselves and each other. It offers us a sense of communion, a reminder that we are not separate from each other. Ahh, the simplicity of genius. Village is nature’s way of living in a world that begs us to reclaim it.

How do we reclaim it?

Eat food grown by local farmers. Less food that’s driven 100s of miles in big trucks, losing life force with every plastic-wrapped, refrigerated mile. More food from people who know your name and are genuinely grateful to see you at their restaurant.

Bask in the presence of children. With most humans living outside of the natural order I call Village, we aren’t offered many chances to hang out with kids on a regular basis. We’re “too busy” or XYZ-excuse. I won’t accept that reality. Kids are enchanting. They can lift your spirits in a split second. After all, kids embody joy.

Open doors for elders and show them respect with your smile for all they’ve been and done with all those years.

Give thanks to Post Office staff on the street; it’s one system we’ve still got that’s good in the USA.

Extend kindness to those who might comfort you if trauma struck your neighborhood. Selfish? Far from it. Wise, proactive, mindful, self-honoring. Love is giving and receiving, on infinite repeat, repeat, repeat… in the human landscape. And Love feels good. That is joy.

Thank you for caring about yourself.

Subscribe now

I’ll close with a few endearing visuals from my Thanksgiving trip to San Diego, starting with some cursive sand art in Pismo Beach.

My trip highlight was in San Diego County’s darling Elfin Forest, visiting a friend whose llamas and mesmerizing cactus blooms left me totally charmed.

When I was a kid, my aunt Irma used to pinch my cheeks. “¡Tan linda!” she would shriek, which meant, “So cute!” Sometimes her pinches hurt, but she meant well. What I felt through her touch was that she loved me so much that she found it almost irresistible to reach out and express it with emphatic touch.

What more could we want in life, than to feel completely loved? Tell me. What more?

It seems I’ve inherited my own joy of physical affection from Aunt Irma. I must acknowledge that by receiving brave and honest feedback in my adulthood, I have refined my ability to perceive other people’s comfort levels with PDA, and to adjust my expression of it based on how ready they are to receive it.

Still, when we feel so clearly the big dose of beauty bestowed upon souls through our own loving touch, it can’t be withheld.

Our hearts want to feel fed, their bold love outwardly and inwardly shed, not to decay as we hold back the love we feel — and are.

As a little girl, I remember feeling the beauty exchanged between my namesake, Maxine, and her piano keys in her San Anselmo home. Her hands so gracefully greeted those keys, and with song after song, her joy filled my soul with Light. There she was, leaning into Light. I had no idea that, more than 30 years later, I would name my business after this exquisitely divine dance — the dance between human and instrument, delicate hands and long, slender keys — soul songs intermingling through touch and sound.

In college, I experienced a romance where PDA was impossible to suppress. We threw frisbee on our campus’ fields and sat holding each other afterward, seated in the grass.

We weren’t indecent; we were in love.

Sure, some people simply aren’t touchy. Others reserve it for connections deemed special. For people who were sexually abused as children, receiving physical affection can be understandably difficult. Stories, traumas, gentleness, joy… the human experience spectrum is vast. Healing trauma takes time. And, it’s possible.

As long as we respect people’s preferences and readiness, paying attention to what works and doesn’t work for each other, adjusting when we receive feedback, isn’t PDA is a wonderful thing?

Subscribe now

It is.

Numerous studies have shown the healing effects of touch in hospital settings, for newborns and cancer patients alike.

A gentle hand placed on someone’s arm as they lay in hospice, can help them feel their final breaths in peace.

And as evidence of how much more advanced dogs are, than humans, with the art of forgiveness, even dogs who’ve been physically abused will often feebly approach their unkind human companion, hoping to be held in loving arms. Hyper-tuned to energies, it feels like dogs think, If only humans would let themselves feel as deeply and fully as we do. If only they’d rush around less and massage our bellies more. If only they would let themselves show Love more often.

Touch helps us remember our oneness.

By showing our love to each other in public, verbally and physically, we grow a more loving world — in the wide open, fresh air, I’m-not-hiding way. In meetings, on social media streams, on the downtown sidewalk.

The air chokes around us when we suppress the joy we feel for each other.

And just as a child watching Sesame Street shines from the inside-out when Ernie says, “You’re a good friend, Bert,” adults shine when we let our love show too. ✨🫀✨

I’ll close with three bite-sized, big Love jewels, because the most impactful thing you can do to make the world, and your life, a more beautiful place, is to love yourself. The more skillful you are at loving you, the more skillful you are at loving others. Add it all up and that’s a far more loving world than the one we’re seeing on ‘the news’ today, one choice at a time. Here are three BITE SIZED, BIG LOVE gems (for $5, $8, $12) to light-up your life or — as a gift — the life of someone you treasure. ✨🌾

First up ~

Befriending Fear is a 1-page guide for writing a letter to your pain, with a 2-minute intro video from me, a prolific lifelong letter writer who survived 5+ years of chronic pain and a near death experience. Your pain is a gift in disguise — a messenger that came to help you deepen your self-awareness and connect to your passion. As written by Anaïs Nin, “The secret of joy is the mastery of pain.” Use this $5 guide to befriend and embrace your pain with wisdom from Making Love to Fear.

Next up… What’s your vision?

What She Sees is my 1-page guide for crafting or refining your vision, with a 2-minute intro video, for $8. Ready to engage your fuller intelligence and illuminate the beauty in your life? Take it from Helen Keller, who said, “The only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision.” Find this little gem here.

Finally,

Light Up Your Life is a recorded mini coaching session (25 min) with a 21- year Love and Leadership Coach (me), including a 2-page guide for notes. This session offers a small slice of the Making Love to Life process, so you can step into the life you’re meant to live — one that’s lit-up by the passion of your truest self. Just $12, here it is.

Being loved feels warm. Loving yourself feels like the entire sun inside of you.
— Kiana Tahiri

Thanks for being here, your presence is appreciated.
♥️ Jessica

It might help to restate it like this: I feel love for all people. Without the slenderest hesitation, men are included.

If you’ve been a Leaning into Light subscriber for 5-10 years, you’re well aware of this. After all, Love is my ‘religion.’ It’s what I write about. It’s what I aim to breathe, in and out, with every breath. I love all females, all males, and all the other ‘ales — well, not beer, but I digress.

Today’s piece is in honor of men…

Fiercely, from the voice of my inner Queen and Mama Bear, who loves both the noble King and the precious, fumbling little boy inside all of you — men.

And succinctly, with a short slice of wisdom from one of my favorite living men, and a link to a workshop he is offering next month.

There is no other person on Earth whose work aligns as precisely with mine, as renowned storyteller, author and mythologist Michael Meade. When I read his writing or hear his voice, I feel seen and profoundly affirmed. And since I love myself as much as anyone else in this world, this means I tune into his shares often, because in order for me to tend to my own greatest form of giving, of loving, humanity — I need to take loving myself very seriously.

If you are a man living in these dark times, I ask:

How often do you feel awe, joy and gratitude? Do you tap into these gems of high-frequency vibration, or ‘altered states’ as Meade puts it, often?

If not, I suggest:

1. Choose one to feel right now. Awe, or Joy, or Gratitude. Close your eyes. Stop thinking and start feeling. Bring something to your awareness that lets you feel awe, joy or gratitude. Focus your attention on it for 5 seconds… 10… for as long as you’re willing to feel it.

2. If your state of awe, joy and/or gratitude brought somebody to mind, someone who you feel explicitly loved and seen by, tell them about my newsletter. Chances are, they’ll be grateful you did. Why? My writing is evergreen, meant to live outside the bounds of time and space, an offer to the whole of our being, the immeasurable. Share this piece with a man you love, if it brought him to mind, as a little love-nugget to brighten his day. Or, here are the links to three other pieces that might appeal to you more.

Do you actually want less suffering? with gems from Rumi, Jung & Nin
Fully Feeling Darkness a Love letter, as usual
Only Now Alive on finding true freedom

Share

To dive deeper, if you are a man who is drawn to my work yet cannot join due to the fact that it is designed for women, here is a workshop next month (for people of all genders), led by the one living person whose work feels most aligned with mine.

Yes, to me, Michael Meade feels like a parallel rainbow.

Sweetness, to boot? I met him in San Francisco in 1999, the same day I met the Dalai Lama. Now that’s pretty darn sweet.

Awakening Genius, Living with Purpose
Saturday December 6th from 10am - 2:30pm PST. Meade writes, about the workshop:

In times of radical change, just as in periods of personal crisis, there is an acceleration of calling as something essential in each soul seeks to become known. A true calling aims at awakening the genius qualities, inner gifts and genuine life potentials already set within each soul.

The question is not whether or not you are a genius, but in what way the threads of genius are trying to awaken and become more conscious in your life. The problem is not that people lack a true calling in life, but rather that received ideas, inner conflicts and outer distractions obscure the more subtle speech of the soul.

The awakening of genius is part of a “second birth” that is so essential that it tries to happen at each critical turning point throughout our lives. Answering the call opens pathways of imagination and healing that lead to finding one’s “dharma” or natural way of being in life and serving in the world.

Resiliency, creativity and transformation are hallmarks of genius and essential capacities needed to navigate times of upheaval and great uncertainty. In transforming each of us, genius would also transform the world.

Subscribe now

As the mother of a child who has citizenship in Sweden, and as someone who feels deep loving care for all children, this news makes me GIDDY. Don’t you love it when a country — not just an individual person — has the nobility to actually change its mind for the sake of its health? May ours (the USA) follow suit, in the 1,000s of ways it could.

I’ll close with a splash of charm and gratitude. The photo below is from when we lived in Sweden (2016-2017), near a cafe on the Gothenburg River. With such abundant waterways, lakes and seas, it’s mandatory for kids to learn how to swim at age five, annnd they don’t have lawyers’ offices on every block, because parents are taught to take care of their children and eliminate the need to sue — blame — each other for this-or-that. Ahh… Scandinavia can teach us a few things.

An Introduction to Spiritual Intelligence ✨

By Jessica Rios
Originally published by the Findhorn Foundation, 12 August 2017

Have you ever wondered what life on Planet Earth might be like in 100 years, when maybe, just maybe, humanity has reached a point of valuing spiritual intelligence (SQ) as much as we seem to value rational intelligence (IQ)?

We have barely begun valuing emotional intelligence (EQ) — so how long might it take before we value what is seen as yet another essential leap into the intelligence and potential of humanity: spiritual intelligence?

With the future being unpredictable, that question may be less helpful than those presenting themselves more readily in the here and now. What is SQ? And as for our own inner questioning, how does each of us embrace it more fully in our own lives?

What Is Spiritual Intelligence?

Exhibiting our human grappling with this relatively new area of study, many definitions have been presented for SQ. Whereas IQ is associated with the left brain, and EQ with the right brain, SQ is noted as a “third way” of human intelligence — one that includes the transcendent, existential aspects of living in a human body.

Perhaps the most succinct definition comes from Richard Griffiths, former National Chairman of the Transpersonal Psychology section of the Australian Psychological Society, who says:

“Spiritual intelligence equals IQ and EQ exercised with presence.”

Griffiths defines presence as the movement of awareness from ego to soul.

The term Spiritual Intelligence was coined in 1997 by Danah Zohar when she introduced the concept in her book Rewiring the Corporate Brain. Considered one of the world’s great thinkers in the realm of management, Zohar studied Physics and Philosophy at MIT and completed postgraduate work in Philosophy, Religion, and Psychology at Harvard.

Definitions of SQ typically distinguish spirituality from religiosity, equating SQ with existential intelligence. In his 2004 book The 8th Habit: From Effectiveness to Greatness, Stephen Covey wrote:

“Spiritual intelligence is the central and most fundamental of all the intelligences, because it becomes the source of guidance for the others.”

How We Measure It (and Why It Matters)

While there is yet no universally agreed-upon method of measuring SQ, principles often include: valuing other people for their differences (not despite them), self-awareness, spontaneity, positive use of adversity, bilateral respect in relationships, tranquility regardless of workload, the ability to utilize spiritual resources to solve problems, and ego self-mastery.

Since this piece was first written, several researchers and practitioners have continued refining ways to understand and even measure SQ. Cindy Wigglesworth’s SQ21 framework and David B. King’s SISRI-24 remain two leading models, both used in leadership, coaching, and psychological research. While consensus around measurement is still emerging, the practical integration of SQ into education, leadership, and organizational development has expanded notably in the last decade.

A Personal Story

Reflecting on how SQ might have touched my life, I am reminded of a noteworthy moment in 1997 during my last year of college when something called to me about Hawai’i. From someplace deep within me, I wanted to go. And I wanted to go all by myself.

In my mind I recalled images of endless, lush greenery. Specifically, Kaua’i, I had heard, was “the most beautiful place on Earth.”

Some close friends had traveled alone, but in my family this wasn’t common for a person my age. My sister was concerned. My dad was concerned. I was cautioned against it. Still I felt called to go.

While there were left-brain (IQ-related) reasons supporting my longing — such as knowing it was part of the USA and that English was spoken — I could have also followed the advice of the TV media: Don’t travel alone; it isn’t safe; stay close to home; bad things happen to good people. What if…? What if…? What if…?

Those messages simply didn’t resonate. There was a tug too strong in my heart urging me to listen. From an EQ perspective, my feeling of trust that it would work out just fine took center stage.

Very clearly there was a feeling in my heart that knew I was safe. Without dissecting the elements of SQ that may have been involved — intermingling with the IQ and EQ in the dance of this decision — I do believe it was SQ that allowed this to become a defining moment in the rest of my life.

Sure enough, though I stayed only with ‘strangers’ and went with very little money, it took less than a week for one of the most life-changing experiences of my life to occur. Almost as in a dream state, I found myself sitting in the living room of a man who is internationally renowned for his spiritual clarity — a teacher of forgiveness who became a dedicated spiritual mentor and friend to me over the last 20 years. Tom Carpenter passed on May 8, 2020. This photo was taken in ~2008 when I visited him and his wife Linda at their home in Port Ludlow, Washington.

Something tells me it was this deep-rooted sense of safety — an unwavering sense of certainty in who I am rather than what I am being in this moment or that moment, the connection I had to my own soul, the refusal to buy into messages of fear — that led to this experience.

Had I listened only to left- or right-brain information, I might have had a great trip. But I don’t suspect it would have been epic.

We Are in Good Company

SQ is universal; each of us can access it when we choose to. No one has “a corner on the market,” as my coach likes to remind me.

Whether afraid or not, whether others approve of our explorations or not, when we open up to our own SQ, it smiles back at us like a lavender bush stretching for the sun.

Even as we inhale with the enormity of human suffering on this planet — the atrocities that happen every single day due to our unloving choices — we can exhale in the knowing that there are many, many examples of SQ in our midst.

Although we don’t yet have a firm method for measuring SQ in individuals, hundreds of humans have been widely recognized as having high levels of SQ. Among them are Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, Don Miguel Ruiz, Caroline Myss, Adyashanti, Ram Dass, Paulo Coelho, Clarissa Pinkola Estés, and Gary Snyder.

We do not need to know anyone personally to benefit from the chemistry exchanged between us. Reading a book by someone who embodies SQ, or listening to a talk in person or online, are both good ways to enhance our sense of spiritual wisdom. Expanding SQ is readily available through one moment’s choice to be present and attentive to our own spiritual wisdom — and then the next.

A Closing Reflection

May we all find ways to engage playfully — and even engage a bit of spiritual mischief — with our own SQ, inviting it to surface from our wise inner depths before we have a chance to think too hard about it.

A simple question I like to ask myself sometimes, when faced with a difficult situation such as conflict with a loved one, is:

How would my spiritual self guide me here?

It is almost shocking how quickly we can seem to trick ourselves out of fear-based thoughts, turning instead to our own timeless wisdom.

© Jessica Rios. Originally published by the Findhorn Foundation (2017). Lightly updated in 2025.

Share

Subscribe now

Claes Hake (pronounced Kloss Hawk-yih) was 6’7” with as deep a voice as I’ve ever heard in a human. A stoic, devoted sailor and painter and an accomplished sculptor whose massive pieces are featured in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Germany and New York, Claes’ inner child emerged with sheer delight around Helena. When she was four years old, our family of three moved to Sweden for a year so she could bond with her Swedish family and be immersed in her father’s native culture.

Two charmed moments stand out in my memories of Farfar Claes, both of which took place while we lived with him and Nina.

The first was visiting his sculptures in the City of Gothenburg’s office courtyard. One of the pieces is him holding hands with his son, Helena’s papa Hjalmar, at age five (1978) wearing overalls and standing on his tippy toes as if to try and reach his father’s height. The piece celebrates the bond between father and son, standing tall and in joy. Yes, I was amused to find them twinning, unplanned, in khaki shorts and red-hued plaid shirts.

Another time, he sat in his living room on the banks of the Gothenburg River and I was in his kitchen. I heard a deep voice call, “Yesss?” with a lingering S at the end. Since the letter J in Sweden sounds like Y in English, and my name is Jess, he called me Yess. I can still hear his voice so clearly, seven years later.

Anyone who hangs out with me knows I am incomparably distracted by children. The sound of their pristinely pure voices, their free spirited playfulness, their oceanically eruptions of upset so fully felt, their ecstatic glee... all pull my attention in an instant.

Helena’s farfar was similarly smitten with his granddaughter. It was utterly delightful to witness how her presence lured out his inner child.

Once Helena’s father (my former husband) and I realized how tall our daughter would be, it struck me that the reason might very well be that — whereas my Puerto Rican parents have seven grandchildren with varying heights, hair and eye colors — for someone with just one, it might be really nice if that child especially resembled you. Now 12 years old and already approaching 5’10”, I believe Helena’s height is a heart-led, Spirit-fed tribute to the life of her very tall Farfar.

I am grateful for you, Claes. You are loved forever. Thank you for your art, for catching and cooking the best fish I’ve ever eaten, and for your playfulness with my daughter.

Share

Ever since my 2021 near death experience (NDE), I see death differently. Suffering scares me far more than death does, since I was shown that there is great Light beyond living.

It is said that we die a thousand small deaths before the “big Death” at the end of life. ‘Tis the season, leaves are falling, trees know how to shed what is no longer needed. Snakes, flowers, clouds, same. Humans, come on — a little biomimicry goes a long way.

What wants to die for you?

We’ll dive into rich realms like this in the next Making Love to Life Masterclass, starting January 7, 2026. Women who are ready for a year that blooms with beauty, join me! The fee is $1,295. Stay tuned to this newsletter for the announcement. Registration opens soon.

But first…

Tomorrow night is the last dance-a-luma of the year, mamacitas, so if you’re in the North SF Bay, come dance with us! Our theme is DYING, and I’ll lead opening and closing circles to support your release of what no longer serves you — be it a job, a friendship or a habit whose time it is, to go. Get tickets here.

Death was actually something I found quite intriguing.

As a kid, I noticed people’s hearts would open, soften, when they lost a loved one. I wondered, Why can’t our hearts be wide open all the time?

When my uncle Cheo died in my early 20s, I loved crying my heart out. Losing him helped me feel and release canyons of sadness my heart had felt about the state of the world, as a teenager.

Walking through cemeteries is a pastime. On a visit to Portland, Oregon, a friend and I walked through a maze of graves and I remember its calming effect, even after we’d just downed lattes.

In my mid-30s, right before presenting to an executive client at a major hospital, I would go into the nearest bathroom and do squats to ground my nervous system, and listen for Code Blue alarms to help me feel calm. I would think, Someone is taking their last breaths… I have nothing to be nervous about.

Around the time I turned 40, my annoyance was quickly swept aside when I realized my favorite holiday was Día de los Muertos. Bold colored dresses and tapestries, bursting orange marigolds, candles on altars, oh my.

It was a moment of surrender. Something in me wanted to die: my unconscious choice to feel annoyed.

We don’t all need to like the same foods or holidays; diversity is what makes nature beautiful, and human nature is no exception. Yet staying irritated, annoyed or otherwise upset is something we can change our minds about, and frankly, humanity could use a huge dose of surrender right now. Who’s got a banner we can hang across the next full moon? It says,

It feels good to feel good.

Surrender feels good. And when we trust and truly let go, it can open doorways to unexpected beauty.

Surrender is a power-tool in the human box of treasures. Like other bits of genius, it is utterly simple and liberating. One at a time, let’s choose to let go of that which holds us back.

What wants to be surrendered by you right now? Is it…

• a mind that’s closed to new ways of seeing and thinking?

• a relationship with a friend or lover, that’s just not a match? If you regularly walk away feeling unmet, unseen or unappreciated, it may be time to let go, or

• a tendency to blame other people for your unhappiness?

• an unhealthy habit that leaves you feeling unlovable?

• a job that doesn’t use your talents well, let alone your unique genius?

• your unreadiness to be completely loved, most importantly, by yourself?

Share

Happy Day of the Living, today.
We are blessed to be alive.

with Love,
♥️ Jessica
@makinglovetofear

Our next dance-a-luma is a tribute to what wants to die. Join me, ladies, next Friday October 17th! We will gather in a barn at the farm where I get produce, and let our bodies help us release the past, the plugged-up, the persistently pesky, the poisonous — anything that no longer serves us. Find details & tickets here.

dance-a-luma October tickets

What if 2026 felt like the first year you ever made love to your own precious life?

Save-the-date for the next Making Love to Life FOUNDATIONS masterclass, a 6-week online journey for women in community. We meet Wed 1/7 thru Wed 2/11, from 11:30am-12pm Pacific. Registration opens 10/20/25.

Think of the best romance you’ve ever had or dreamed of. What if your whole life was infused with that kind of delicacy?

It’s literally dreamy. Often I find myself shaking my head with a feeling of… How is this real? or This is unbelievable. It brings me great joy to share this path with other women, so together, we bring about a world woven with more Love than fear.

learn more

Even with ancient wisdom showing us a smoother and less painful way to live, we humans still pack a resistant punch. Our inner toddlers kick and pout, determined to stay stuck for much longer than life deems necessary.

And so, today, for those of you who genuinely want less suffering, I’ll share a few gems from three beings whose blazes of wisdom still echo as invitations for us to choose freedom: Carl Jung (1875-1961), Anaïs Nin (1903-1977) and Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi (1207-1273).

May these simple, profound sparks of wisdom infuse your now with beauty.

Lately, Jung has been making frequent appearances in my perception-scape. He is strikingly tuned-in. For those looking to deepen your awareness of these liberating concepts, I highly recommend doing some Jungian analysis work. In the same vein, I’ve just picked dates for my next Making Love to Life masterclass, designed for the she’s, which includes a session devoted to Making Love to Fear. (Scroll down for January 2026 save-the-date details.) As an appetizer, I was recently invited to be a guest on the Dare to Be Great, Dare to Be You podcast with Shawn Langwell; you can listen here or watch the unedited video here.

A person doesn’t become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious. — Carl Jung

And so I wonder, what part of your inner darkness is begging for you to notice and listen to it?

The secret of joy is the mastery of pain. — Anaïs Nin

What pain is in the way of you living joyfully? It’s your birthright, after all. To feel a joyful skip in your step at least once a day. To feel joy in the morning sun, filling your eye-scape as it glistens on autumn red maple leaves. To see the joy in a child’s eyes as he tells his dog to, “Sit!” and the dog sits and feel it, contagiously filling up your joy-bucket, too.

Joy is simple. Simplicity is genius.

Since the late 90s, my favorite quote has been this utterly simple and exquisitely profound gem from Rumi —

Through love, all pain will turn to medicine.

If humanity really sat with that one and let it in, we would all be beckoned to co-create a more loving world.

Share

I will close with the last part of one of Rumi’s poems, The Guest House.

So today, I feel moved to share a story about the power of dance in my life. It’s the longest-ever (16 min) video I’ve put into this newsletter; I gave myself permission to just tell the story without limits; listen if you want to hear the whole story. And if not, reading this very short post gets straight to my intention.

As a personal narrative writer and artist, my intent is to invite you to move closer to your unique relationship with dance — regardless of gender, age or geography — so together, we are co-creating a reality that is more joyful, more alive, more free.

When I feel scared, stressed or heartbroken, nothing helps me move through it more quickly or effectively than listening to music while moving my body. Hiking is one way to do it, but somehow, dancing tops the charts.

If I find myself clenching my jaw with tension, stressed-out for one reason or another, and I want to respond gracefully, I just play a song that makes my body want to move and… Voi-la! Within seconds, the stress dissipates. Not because I’m running away from it, but because I have let the temple I am living in, take the lead.

Fear-fed thoughts and feelings are clarified, upleveled, and released to allow Love-led ones to come through.

Try it today, in the privacy of your own home:

• Notice when you feel stress, agitation or some other unpleasant sensation.

• Immediately turn on a song that makes your body feel alive, activated, energetically turned on

• Give yourself permission to move, all-out, to fully move your legs and arms, hips and head — to fully feel your body communing with the music

• Notice how you feel now. What did the dancing do to your icky feelings?

If it helped, keep it up! Make it a regular practice.

And find some great live music to move to on a regular basis, too, like the Have Fun Be Nice morning dance parties happening in 66 U.S. cities. I’m supposed to go to San Francisco for it today annnnnd… 😑 my body is unusually tired and sore after an unexpected 4-hour dance session yesterday featuring one of my favorite bands, The Crooked Stuff, and closing up with 90s fun from Ga$ Money. If you read this in time to make it to the Ferry Building @ 11am for Have Fun Be Nice, I’ll give you my ticket! Just respond to this message by 10:30am (2 1/2 hours, ready, set, go!).

There’s my invitation for today. A reminder to love yourself. It’s that simple, and as important as it gets. Here are two songs that might make you wanna move: Fresh & Honey.

Share

Women, wanna make 2026 the best year of your life? Wanna take your life from “good enough” to glowing from the inside-out? Well then, save-the-date! My next Making Love to Life FOUNDATIONS Masterclass starts January 7th. We’ll meet online every Wednesday for 6 weeks from 11am-12:30, joined by my collaborator, dance artist Amelia Eisen, who brings the power of dance directly into our journey.

And if you’re a she-her in wine country, join me for the next dance-a-luma on Friday 9/19 at 7pm downtown Petaluma! This month’s theme is SEE!, an invitation to feed your vision for living the life you want. What are the highlights you see, when you imagine your most authentic, joy filled life? Bring a few girlfriends, and wear shades of blue in the spirit of SEE! Get tickets here.

Subscribe now