hello after so long

dear stranger-friends,

I'm sorry it's been so long. at the end of july, I fell into a black hole, and I climbed out just in time to celebrate my 30th birthday last week -- alone, on the island of santorini, greece.

if you don't remember who I am, or why you subscribed to this newsletter, you can visit my world or journal or (my outdated) about.

please don't hesitate to unsubscribe!

I will write weekly from now on - let's say, mondays, or tuesdays.

consider this massive letter a 4 month catch-up. it will be mostly pictures -- but everything is linked.

this newsletter is an artistic-emotional-nomadic life digest about:

life as art, art as life,
as ongoing process;
a collection of moods,
a distillation of places,
ways of seeing and being
inner resources
to make it more bearable
maybe, even beautiful.

...

i'm wishing you
the antioxidants
of a thousand
pomegranates,

kening

1 | time sensitive news first -- a new online course

I am launching the beta version of a course called house on the webs - it's an 8 day sprint to build a website / digital home - my way - which is not your usual way. yes, there is a special beta price. it starts next monday, november 28th. write me with any questions.

house on the webs: your website in 8 days

2 | seven emotional resources (from the archives)

i will plant beautiful things in my mind, because the world has too much ugliness already. too much pollution, negligence, too many weeds gone rampant, parasites roaming free.

take a bath -- is the opposite of taking a walk
make a soothing playlist -- for the emotional medicine cabinet
30 min centering ritual -- designed to be travel friendly
rituals of a life in recovery -- a circular to-do list
scorpio self-care -- a forever ongoing guide / note-to-self
deep journaling -- facing hard feelings on the page
13 nourishing practices for wellbeing -- an old but thorough post

3 | 30th birthday alone in santorini

I wrote an essay about how I spent my 30th birthday alone in santorini -- and it was the best I've had in my adult life.

turning thirty on full moon -- I watched the moon rise the day I turned thirty - and it was beautifully serenditipous...

4 | from santorini island (november)

hiking the trail from fira to oia -- feels like walking along the edge of a dream

skaros rock -- skaros rock is a rock formation which juts out into the sea, and venetian fortress ruins that look like a pile of rocks - so I call it: the kingdom of volcanic rocks.

karavolades stairs -- on my first day in santorini, I walked from where I’m staying to fira, along a footpath through the caldera of breathtaking views, down to karavolades stairs, which should be called - the wide winding path guarded by donkeys

the fame of santorini sunsets -- and so i find myself in a place which is famous for its sunsets - and i am asking myself the question: but is the sun not the same, everywhere?

5 | from naxos island (october)

exploding island of my heart -- on days when i feel bad i draw pictures of what is happening inside of me, and then somehow, inexplicably, i feel better.

pomegranates from naxos island -- my host gave me some fruit from her garden, and then I went to the market and bought more pomegranates

blue dome of unsolvable mysteries -- one day i took a bus into the mountain villages and saw a blue domed church at the top of a mountain peak

existing on a greek island -- my world looks like this these days. i wake up. i write. i work. i listen to the sound of the sea — though these days it’s silent — and i try to recall the meaning of art, of money, of traveling, of life.

greek autumn island diaries -- a photo log of my daily activities

6 | athens after istanbul

old wounds, ancient ruins -- if istanbul felt like living in the water of the wound - with despair so near that I could taste it, like sugar dissolved in a bitter tea, then in athens, the wound (and all its accompanying secrets) felt old; eroded by time.

7 | art from a dark place (& istanbul)

okay, last but not least: I went through a heartbreak like a nightmare: think romance-travel-adventure film turned into a psychological horror film. it gave me lots of art, though.

heartbreak is grounding