I have learned so much this year - it has been incredible. This has been important lately: 

Each person chooses their own path to peace.

Each person has the the opportunity to choose what and where to explore. To choose which impulses they will follow. 

Each person builds their own world - a world that reflects what they find to be important. 

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In one way or another, all paths lead to peace. There is no wrong path. 

There is no way to know what will happen next. The future is a beautiful mystery. There is no way to be certain where our choices will lead us. 

You can't be certain, but you can be peaceful.

Happy Thanksgiving from Berlin. 

Headed to Liverpool from Leeds today. I wrote this a few days ago and thought it would be interesting to share.
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A year ago, I stopped hiding behind my fear. So, basically, I'm just scared all of the time, now.
**It's really funny if you think about it.**

After about a year of being scared, I'm getting used to being scared.

I was just as scared before, but I just pretended I wasn't scared. Now, instead of being scared and hiding, I go look at the scary things.

Turns out that MOST everything is not as scary as I thought. A lot of the things are way cooler than they are scary. It's great.

Some things are REALLY scary - and those are the interesting things to think about.
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I've spent the year hiding much less.
I feel kind of like I'm a one-year-old.
Finally! =)
I finally spent a year letting myself be scared and not trying to make it go away.
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I hope everyone is doing great out there in world. I'm having a really nice time lately. D

I wonder how many ways there are to learn. 

I wonder if every opportunity to learn is essentially the same and that we change. That there aren't fun lessons to learn and painful lessons to learn and sad lessons to learn. That there are only opportunities to learn and people. 

I wonder if saying that a lesson is painful is the same as describing a wind as an angry wind - it's personification of sorts. Then, if these descriptions are not descriptions of the lesson - the lesson only is - then they are descriptive of our relationship to the lesson. 

If so, then these descriptions are a tool. They are indicative of where we are in the process of learning that lesson. When there is pain or sadness, there is a lesson that we have not yet learned. There is a truth that we have not accepted - there is a paradox in our thinking. When there is joy, there is acceptance of what is and therefore we have learned the lesson. 

We can watch ourselves learn and in this way we can be our own guides. I wonder if we can ever actually be lost - that we can only be in denial of what is. 

The power in art is that art champions authenticity. 

In fact, art is - in a way - proof that everyone actually knows when you're not being authentic. 

It shows that authenticity is apparent.

With art, it is clear that there is most power in honesty and transparency. 

Therefore, the practice of an art form is the practice of sustaining authenticity. 
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This is what I'm working on:

I believe the power of studying an art form is in being able to take lessons learned into the world. 

Man, It's a scary to do! 

But regardless of the scary, I'm trying to build my relationships, my business, my teaching, everything is the same way I build my music. 

Built on the foundation of honesty and transparency. Like art is.

Built through community. Like bands build music. It's a team, ya know?

Built through the support of one an other. The best musicians work foremost to make the other musicians in the band sound better. 

This is how I think things work best. 

Really, this is how I've seen things work best. 

Every day practicing music. 

So, I'm doing everything this way. 

And I'm going to see what happens.