This is part 3/3 of my series: “Something Magical Came Together at Big Ears Festival
Making the Invisible Visible
There’s a question I ask in almost every workshop I teach: “How do we make the invisible visible?” Another way of asking this is: “How do we become aware of the fact that we are both energy (invisible) and structure (visible)?”
Why is this relevant? (Bruce would ask about now!) Because seeing and feeling the world as both sides of the same coin—energy and matter—is empowering, adds magic to the moment, and can help shift us out of unpleasant physiological states that don’t match the moment we’re attempting to experience.
So, how do we take concepts like cellular consciousness, epigenetics, and the biology of belief—ideas that live in the realm of science and theory—and bring them down to earth? Down to the level of your actual, lived experience?
Not just something you understand. Something you feel.
That’s the work. And it’s trickier than it sounds. But it also adds a certain spice to life you can’t buy or find at any international flea market anywhere.
I spent years studying Bruce Lipton’s research and notes, years before his first book arrived on the scene. I remember being fascinated by how perception changes biology, how beliefs literally reprogram cells, how we’re not victims of our genes but participants in our own evolution.
Beautiful science. Life-changing insights. Where is the bridge and how can I get there?
The real shift happened when I stopped just thinking about it and started practicing it. When I found simple ways to access that cellular wisdom in the middle of my ordinary, messy, beautiful life.
In my last two posts, I’ve shared two practices that do exactly that:
10/10 – a practice born from my son’s birth that evolved into a daily pause for presence, and
Bookmarking – a practice to capture moments of joy and carry them with you as cellular nourishment.
For the third installment in this blog series, let me tell you the recent story of:
Just Feel How Good Everything Is Right Now – Eight words that arrived when I needed them for comfort and perspective—and have now become a simple and grounded way back to gratitude.
None of these require special skills or circumstances. They’re not reserved for meditation cushions or quiet retreats.
They happen in parking lots, at kitchen tables, during walks through the neighborhood. They’re woven into regular life because that’s where embodiment actually lives—not in the concept, but in the moment.
Your body already knows things your mind is still trying to figure out. These practices are just ways to listen. Ways to make the invisible visible. Ways to live from your cellular intelligence instead of just thinking about it.
Read them. Try them. Adapt them to your own life.
Because the biology of belief isn’t something to study—it’s something to embody.
And it starts right here, right now, in the simple practice of paying attention.
Just Feel How Good Everything Is Right Now
Just feel
how good
everything is
right now.
Eight words. Four beats. And they stopped me in my tracks — literally.
I heard them recently in a very rhythmic way, and they’ve become a new practice for moments when I feel uptight about something I can’t control. Learning to let go and trust the moment has been an ongoing inquiry for me. These eight words arrived like a transmission — what I’ve been describing to friends as getting “slapped by my higher self.”
It happened last weekend at Big Ears Festival in Knoxville, Tennessee. Four days of world-class musicians across multiple stages and venues throughout downtown. I went in without rigid expectations, having been warned by seasoned festivalgoers that you’ll inevitably miss something you wanted to see. I heard them — I just didn’t think it would happen to me.
I’m structured. I know what I want.
And yet. The show I most coveted had a line out the door and around the block. I sat with that for a moment — how did I end up late to the one show I absolutely had to see? No answer came. None was needed.
I started the two-mile walk back across downtown to catch SML, one of my new favorite jazz crossover bands in residency at the festival — a group I’d already seen perform four sets and would happily see again.
Somewhere along that walk, I just… stopped. Mid-stride, good pace, no reason. And that’s when I heard it:
Just feel / how good / everything is / right now.
In that moment, everything snapped into focus. In the grand scheme of things, everything was perfect. I was having the time of my life. There was still so much incredible music ahead. I had everything I needed — and most importantly, I had great energy and stamina, which allowed me to be with the music in deeply intimate ways. To dance, to sway, to go still — whatever the moment was inviting. I made new connections, met musicians I deeply respect, and kept running into friends from Asheville, including a few people I knew all the way back from Santa Cruz.
Nothing was missing. Everything was exactly right.
Now these eight words live in my back pocket. In moments of tightness, I can pause, say them in rhythm, and let that cellular memory of Big Ears move through me — instant comfort, instant nourishment, instant return to what’s true.
I’m challenging myself, in a very kind way, to become aware of those moments when I find myself moving in rigid ways or patterns that are customary, that I know well, when my buttons get pushed just right.
I have a new pause.
These eight words, at the rhythm of the moment they’re calling, are going to patiently wait for a response. A response to find gratitude in the gift of aliveness.
So here I was, at my first Big Ears Festival right in the middle of all the action listening to one of my favorite new jazz bands on the scene, SML. The fourth and final night and they start playing “Taking Out the Trash,” one of my favorite tracks off their new album — which reminds me of dumping those old beliefs I don’t need to carry any longer.
I look at my phone to coordinate with my buddy Jeff and notice it’s 9:29pm. I offer all my cells a loving inner-smile, bookmark the moment, and recite…
Just feel / how good / everything is / right now.
I offer it to you.
Here are two screenshots I took a while ago of mine and Noam’s birthdays disguised as time.
This is part 3/3 of my series: “Something Magical Came Together at Big Ears Festival
- Part 1: 10/10 Embodied Practice
- Part 2: The Gap Between Knowing and Living
- Part 3: Making the Invisible Visible
