Happy Sunday, everyone, and happy Pride Month to my fellow queer folks! Yes, I’ll say it every week until it’s over :)
This Week’s Photo
This moment of trans joy featuring Camembert (they/them, Cam for short) was captured by girlfriend Jessica at the wonderfully dog-friendly Bark Espresso in Seattle.
The Week That Was
My combo box tanpura / swarmandal arrived intact Monday, so I got to figure out how to tune that. I obviously landed on C Whole Tone (C-AAA for xenome heads), with the tanpura tuned C2-C3-C3-G#2 and the swarmandal tuned C3-C3-D3-E3-E3-F#3-E3-F#3-G#3-G#3-A#3-C4-C4-D4-E4. It sounds pretty amazing. I’ll definitely change up the swarmandal tuning to match the modal context of whatever I’m working on, but it was great to get a baseline for tuning the instrument, and a bit of relief that I could do it and make decent sounds come out of a new instrument.
Cryptid Soup, my queer contemplative improvisation group, had a great session at the studio Thursday night, despite a few regular attendees (i.e. both bass players) being absent. We’re gearing up for a full weekend studio retreat in early July to prep for our first public outing on July 12th for the Wayward Music Series at the Chapel.
What I’m Reading
I started and completed my first week of creativity coaching training with author and coaching legend Eric Maisel this week, so I’m heavily focused on the texts related to that. I’m pretty excited to start putting what I’m learning into practice, and I’ll be taking on some free clients soon to log the hours needed for certification. I’ll also be starting existential wellness coaching training with Noble Manhattan this week (another Eric Maisel program), which I’ll be working through over the next 6 months. On top of all that, I’ve been looking into mindfulness teacher training, and I’ll likely enroll in a program for that next spring. My ultimate goal is to be able to offer holistic coaching, classes, support groups, and retreats for queer and trans creatives.
Comment or reply if you’re interested in being a free coaching client / guinea pig while I get through my training!
What I’m Watching
My spouse and I rewatched/finished season 4 of Cobra Kai to get back into the groove of the show, with plans to watch season 5 starting tonight before moving on to the new Star Trek: Discovery, the final episode of which will be up in a few days. We don’t like having to wait a week between episodes, so we always wait for all episodes to post before we start watching. I’m also excited to get to the new Star Wars series once that’s completely aired.
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That’s all for this week! Thanks as always for reading. Leave a comment (or reply to the email) and let me know what you’ve been up to!