Letters from Bali

What Is the Lion's Gate Portal? The 8/8 Meaning, Explained

The Lion's Gate Portal runs July 28 to August 12 and peaks on 8/8. What the alignment actually is, why Sirius and the pyramids matter, why 2026 carries four eights rather than three, and what to do...

The Year I Stopped Trying to Scale

A letter on building slowly. What I got wrong about speed, about outsourcing my own taste, and about treating my nervous system like an inconvenience.

Making Hair-story: The Meaning of Braids in Mexico

In many Indigenous communities braids are never neutral. Regional traditions, Oaxacan ribbons, and why a braid is also the most practical thing a woman over forty can do for her hair.

Making Hair-story: Before Mexico, There Were Indigenous Hair Traditions

Long before Mexico was a nation, Nahua, Maya, Zapotec and dozens of other peoples each held their own relationship to hair. Not one tradition. Many. And what survived in families like Mayra's.

Lion's Gate Portal 2026: What 8/8 Means and How to Work With It

The Lion's Gate Portal peaks on Saturday August 8, 2026. Why this year carries four eights and not three, the staircase of numbers around it, and a simple practice for the day.

Making Hair-story: A Mexican Family's Ancestry, Carried in Hair

Mayra Penaloza on her grandmother's hair that reached the ground, a birth in a forest, and what Mexican hair carries: inheritance, memory, and quiet daily devotion.

The Nine Days Before the Eclipse

The moon is subtracting a little more of herself every night until the total solar eclipse on 12 August. A letter on the nine days that walk up to the dark, and what they are actually for.

The Part of Building That Nobody Photographs

Ten years in, the visible part of building a business is maybe four percent of it. A letter from an empty workshop in Pererenan about the quiet months, deciding the same thing twice, and building a...

The Last Thirty Seconds of Your Shower

The part of washing your hair that almost nobody thinks about, and the one that decides how your hair behaves for the next three days. A letter on the final rinse, written on the first morning of A...

What a 9 Month Asks You to Put Down

July was an 8. August 2026 is a 9 universal month, the closing of the circle before September resets to a 1. A letter from Bali on what a 9 month asks you to finish, three questions to write by han...