The Decorations Changed. The Work Remained.

This morning I woke up and asked myself a simple question. What is it that I really want? Immediately, familiar images appeared. A small cabin by a creek. Or a house with expansive views. Dreams I've carried for years. Even before that, there was a piece of land in Ecuador that my ex-husband and I bought, where I dreamed of living close to nature. For a few moments those old dreams passed through my mind. And then suddenly I became very still. So still that it almost felt like Elena disappeared for a moment. The dreams disappeared too. And what remained was this simple, aware presence. Completely at peace. Needing absolutely nothing. Everything was exactly as it should be. Life wasn't solved. Nothing had changed. Yet everything was perfect. As I rested there, the answer to my question became completely obvious. I want those things: a cabin on a land, perhaps a house on the hills. They are beautiful, and maybe one day life will bring them. But they do not stop the question of what I truly want. And when I got very very still, I knew it: I want to help people discover even a moment of this peace for themselves - an innate harmony of our beingness. Because I know how deeply healing it is. Over the last years I've immersed myself completely in being human. Grief, confusion, uncertainty, losing direction, finding it again. Those experiences made me understand anyone who comes to me. I too have lived life. So much of it. But this last week something else happened. In the middle of my own uncertainty, I remembered myself. Not Elena. Something much quieter. Much simpler. The awareness that has been here all along. Nothing about my work changed. The runes are still the incredibly revealing instrument I use. People still come with heartbreak, confusion, impossible decisions, grief, or simply the feeling that they've lost themselves. For years, I've helped people see their situations more clearly and discover another way forward. That hasn't changed. What changed was me. I recalled that I no longer feel I have to bring someone to peace. I simply have to remain there myself. If I remain there, people often find their way there too. It feels like a much quieter place to work from.

When I started offering Clarity Sessions at the farmers markets, I chose a donation model for one simple reason. I wanted anyone who genuinely needed to be able to sit down with me, regardless of what they could afford. For four months, it worked beautifully. People who couldn't contribute much came anyway. People who could often gave more. Somehow it balanced itself, and I started thinking maybe this really could work. Then one Sunday, a well-dressed woman, vacationing in the area, sat down in my Purple Tent. We spent about forty minutes together. It wasn't a light conversation. Like most sessions, it required complete attention. For those forty minutes, her life became my work. When we finished, she reached into her purse and handed me ten dollars. I looked at her and said something I had never said before: "This is not a charity. I work hard. I take my work seriously." She looked surprised, reached into her purse again. "Here's twenty. Give me the ten back." At that moment I wanted to give her money back. Obviously she needed it. I agree, its expensive to vacation in this area. This incident and a few before made me question my intention. A few days later I realized something else. The donation model itself wasn't the problem. It simply wasn't serving everyone in the same way. So I made one small change. The Purple Tent will continue to be available to my fellow locals by donation, because that was always the heart of the idea. For visitors, I'll offer shorter market sessions for a fixed fee. The generosity remains. It simply has clearer boundaries now.

11 years ago, I came from NYC to California to rest after a brutal divorce. I thought, why not work in a kitchen, not think about anything for a while, and add my skills to a team? It was a strange turn of events. Before that I had been a computer programmer and systems analyst in Manhattan, spent years studying and teaching yoga, later accumulated more than 10,000 hours of classical meditation, helped build a medical business with my ex-husband. But somehow, at that moment, frying corn cakes and washing dishes in a busy kitchen felt exactly right. I value new experiences and don’t classify them in the usual way. Every experience here, while alive, is an opportunity to learn more about myself. Still learning and still interested These days, many of those lessons come through conversations with other people. I never get tired of watching someone suddenly relax after seeing their situation from a different angle. And sometimes we even laugh together at our predicament here.

Something beautiful happened these last two market days. Several people said something to me that I wasn't expecting. "I'm so grateful you exist." "Thank you for being here." "I'm grateful I can just come and talk to you." It touched me ❤️ Today, three women sat down with me. Each conversation lasted longer than usual. They needed it. They all found their way to my purple tent differently. One has been reading my Facebook posts. Another was sent by someone who had already sat with me. The third had seen me at the market many times but had never had the chance to stop. What struck me how effortless the whole day felt. Not because I suddenly figured something out. The effort had already happened. It was in showing up every week, sitting in the purple tent, writing, listening, and simply being available. And people just walked over. As I listened to these women, I realized they weren't thanking me for a service. They were grateful that if life became confusing, they knew there was a place they could simply come, sit down, and talk. That realization touched me more than I expected. I never set out to create something like this. I simply wanted to be available. Looking back, I think that's what has been growing all along. Not just a little purple tent, but a place where people know they can come when life gets tangled. ❤️

Yesterday I had the feeling that I had crossed some invisible threshold. Not that I had arrived somewhere, but something had changed. For the past few weeks, I noticed that I mostly worked with people who came to the market specifically to talk to me. I realized that recognition had happened. People no longer stumble into my Purple Tent while shopping for vegetables. They come looking for me. Someone tells a friend. Someone remembers seeing my posts. Someone says, "You should talk to Elena." And I thought that perhaps life unfolds much like a tree. At first, roots spread wide. They search. They explore. They reach in many directions. Recognition comes. Connections are formed. The web expands. And then, something else begins to happen. Roots grow deep. A mature tree does not need to spread endlessly. It needs nourishment. And nourishment comes through roots going deep. There are seasons in life when we are meant to spread wide. And there are seasons when we are meant to deepen. Not more people, but better fit. Not more access, but more trust. Not quantity. Depth. And this part is the most interesting: Trees do not control their roots. Roots grow where nourishment and gravity invite them. Perhaps wisdom is recognizing the season we are in and allowing the roots to do what roots have always done. Spread. And spread some more. Until one day, without consulting us, they begin to go deep. In their own time.

Empathy says "I feel your pain." Compassion says: "I know your pain." Empathy can be overwhelming. It can rush to fix. It can panic. It can act emotionally. It can even become confused and carry burdens that do not belong to it. Compassion is quieter. It recognizes suffering because it has known suffering. But because it knows, It does not assume that love means immediate action. Compassion can sit beside pain without becoming lost in it. It can allow people their own experiences. It can trust life enough not to interfere with every discomfort. Perhaps that is why compassion feels so peaceful. Not because it cares less. But because it understands more. And because it understands more, it no longer needs to act on every emotion that passes through. Sometimes love acts. And sometimes love simply knows. 💜

Most of us carry a wound. Not necessarily some dramatic trauma, but a painful sense that something is wrong with us, that we are not quite okay as we are. Sometimes it appears as anxiety, loneliness, tension, or a vague dissatisfaction that follows us through life. And naturally, we look for relief. Some drink. Some use substances. Some work endlessly. Some distract themselves with entertainment, relationships, or constant activity. Or we build a personality of authority and hide in there. Anything that allows us, even temporarily, not to feel the pain. Eventually many discover that these remedies do not last. And so some of us turn toward spirituality. Perhaps we have already exhausted other options. We realize that temporary bandages will never bring lasting peace. We are willing to go all the way. We are ready to transcend suffering itself ! But here we encounter a great disillusionment: Transcendent experiences do not heal the wound. Years of spiritual practice do not heal the wound. Even the most profound enlightenment experiences do not heal the wound. In fact, as many sincere seekers discover, the pain may become even more intense. The structures and defenses that once protected us begin to fall away, and what we spent our lives avoiding may stand before us more naked than ever. So what is it that we are really seeking? The ability to simply be ourselves without tension. Peace of mind. Contentment. Who worries about enlightenment when they are deeply content? Who thinks about transcendence when there is simple peace? Perhaps what keeps us in perpetual suffering is not the wound itself. It is the endless effort to avoid feeling it. And healing begins not when the wound disappears, but when we stop running. What we have always wanted was never some extraordinary state. We simply wanted permission to be here. Exactly as we are. Without tension. Without inner war. Without having to become somebody else.  Without hiding our beautiful, vulnerable self.

One of my neighbors at the Carmel Valley farmers market is Peter, 79 year old woodworker who makes black and white photography framed in raw wood. There is something about his work I really enjoy. The subtlety of black and white. The texture of unfinished wood. Nothing flashy. Nothing trying too hard to impress anyone. Every Sunday he quietly arrives at the market with his photographs and wooden frames. He could easily stay home at his age, but instead he keeps showing up. I noticed something about him recently. Peter never rushes. Not physically. Not psychologically. In a world where everybody is optimizing, accelerating and reacting to constant stimulation, there is something deeply human about an old craftsman simply continuing to show up with pieces of wood, black and white photographs, and his quiet presence. This photo somehow captures two humans showing up every Sunday with our strange offerings in the middle of the Hay Universe . Peter looks like a man who quietly sanded wood for 60 years and made peace with reality. I look like a festival piñata that escaped containment in a parking lot

When I first learned reading runes, I was guided in my dream to a teacher in Russia, a Mage. I am deeply grateful for that period, he gave me the initial insight and understanding in rune interpretations I needed. My relationship with the runes never became static. It wasn't a matter of memorizing meanings and applying them forever. It continues to evolve. I notice patterns. The runes notice how I see those patterns. Meaning emerges through the relationship itself. This is not something anyone taught me. There is a living participation taking place. At some point, my teacher and I naturally went our separate ways, because I could no longer allow someone else's insights to override my own direct experience. Many traditions speak about this moment in different ways. In Buddhism there is a famous saying: "If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him." , because eventually one must stop following someone else's realization and walk one's own path. Mastery, to me, is not the perfect repetition of what we have learned from others. That may produce skill. But art begins when something more immediate appears. When there is direct communication with Reality itself. Then the art becomes alive. And perhaps the learning never really ends. It simply becomes a conversation.