Guten Tag, Reader,

The sidewalks of La Paz are full of cracks, holes, drops, steps, twists, and turns. They keep you on your toes. Until they throw you off them. If you want to look around, you have to stop.

So that’s what I did when a wink of yellow caught my eye against all the concrete. While the rest of my group walked ahead, I crouched down, greeting, meeting, this concrete-defiant purslane.

Aliveness that defies restriction is always worth a pause to me. I am always open to receiving a lesson from the more-than-human world about the power of creation that doesn’t care about our culture’s desire to control, define, shape, and judge it.

I thank that little purslane for stopping me in my tracks because those tracks (a.k.a. brainy brain thoughts) were, once again, trying to lead me towards self-censorship:

• Don’t even bother continuing your travel journal – it’s not good.
• Forget about that book idea – nobody’s interested.
• Teaching a class about natural creativity? Who do you think you are?

Can you feel the joy-sucking power of that list? Consider this: If this is just a small selection of joy-killing thoughts in my little brain, let’s assume there is a wider variety of them out there in lots of brains, perhaps including yours?

And that’s a (costly) bummer because we won’t get to see, read, hear, smell, touch, and enjoy each other’s creations if we continue to wait for approval from our inner critics (who learned to speak the language of a culture that doesn’t wish to understand our weirdness). Even after I sold out the 2025 edition of the Holiday Slowdown Advent Calendar, my internal protectors wonder if this success might only have been a fluke.

Thank you, little purslane, for representing the kind of natural instinct that doesn’t wait for approval and just grows and flowers where it can.

Which is what I want for all of us.

As always, if you liked this letter, do me a favor and forward it to a friend.

Always on your side, truly,

p.s. As I prepare for that spring workshop on natural creativity with my former colleague Brenna McCormick, I’m listening closely.

If you’re open to it, tell me one thing you’re trying to grow creatively right now — and, if you want, what’s been keeping it stuck. A sentence or two is perfect.

p.p.s. If you found something valuable in today's letter, why not buy me a coffee? I am keeping my writing AI-free, which means a lot of creativity goes into it. You can leave a tip for me here.