May 2026

I am sitting in my living room, passing the time until my yoga teacher training later tonight. We’re on our second to last weekend of the training. It’s consumed much of my life for the past three months, and I’m not sure how I’m going to feel when it ends. There’s a good chance I’ll feel relieved because I miss having all of my weekends free. But I’ve really found my sparkle again through this training. My mind body connection feels stronger than it has in years, and I’m obsessed with having arm muscles again. Honestly I’m not sure teaching traditional yoga is in my future. I’m much more excited by the theological conversation in the yogi texts and lineage than I am the westernized physical practice (did you know what we now consider yoga didn’t exist until the 1900s??). But time will tell why I was called to complete this training.

Each year leading up to New Years I put a bunch of wishes in a jar, and burn out each night. I wrote about the practice on my Substack if you want to learn more. On the first day of the New Year, I pull the final wish out of the jar and claim it as my responsibility. All the other wishes are in God’s hand. My 2026 wish was completing yoga teacher training, which at the time seemed like an impossible task. I was in the worst shape of my life at the time, vaping nicotine and desperately trying to get my life back on track after a disastrous 2025. I wasn’t even going to sign up. I was so used to giving up on myself that I figured why not give up on this task from the Universe. But something changed drastically while I was traveling through Peru in early February. My Grandmother had recently died, which was a huge shock to my system. We’d become best friends over the past few years, and I couldn’t imagine life without her. I was in Agues Calista at the time, having just hiked to Machu Picchu when I received the news. I rememer going down to the river, sending a cacao offering into the rushing water, then heading back to my room to sign up for yoga teacher training. Quite the dramatic moment. The training started the weekend after I got home from my travels, so I didn’t have much time to think about it. Now we’re ~150 hours in to a 200 hour training. I’ve logged countless more hours attending classes and reading about yoga. I have teachers that I consider spiritual guides in my quest towards embodiment. I’ve had breakdowns, especially during Iyengar weekend when I realized I’m technically a -1 level yoga practitioner in the eyes of BK Iyengar. It’s been a rather magical experience, if not brutal and revealing.

What else is going on… I’m coming up on a year of publishing on Substack. Metamorphosis Works has evolved from a small publication to a roaring collection of essays that I feel deeply proud of. I’m only beginning to harness the power of the platform. I’m evolving my writing from purely eco theological reflection to a more widespread consideration of modern life in the technological age. I’m glad my readers are sticking around for that shift. I’m sure my writing will continue to evolve once I begin divinity school in the Fall. It feels surreal to be attending Harvard, one of the most progressive and pluralistic divinity schools in the world. I can study everything from psychedelic chaplaincy to divination to the yoga sutras, all while gaining experience for my future career in pastoral care. I’ve also built out Metamorphosis Works into a fully fledged business, focused on spiritual direction for women who feel like they’re wasting their life following the path laid out for them that is no longer working anymore. But I have some training to do before I take that work public.

I’ve put my first novel down. Emma Darwin and her clan of friends will return triumphantly when I am ready to rewrite that story, but in the meantime I’m sinking my teeth into an eco fantasy murder mystery with amateur detective Valora Crane and her unlikely sidekick PhD candidate Tarish Oen on the case. It feels relieving to move on from the exhausting of working on a book that needs some time to breath. I have no idea how professional writers work on multiple books at once while promoting the ones finally launching to the public. It feels relieving to admit that becoming an author is a side hobby to my spiritual work. They feed one another in equal measure, but I don’t have the drive to commit myself fully to the traditional publishing world right now.

Living in Boston has been great. I find myself missing NYC in small ways, especially all the people I didn’t find time to meet while I was there. It felt impossible to do much of anything towards the end of my time living in Brooklyn. Like I was swimming through rat-ridden jello. Grief does strange things to the mind. But I’m onto a new adventure. Boston has far more to offer than I remember… or maybe I’m just getting older.