The Kiva

The Kiva by Kathryn Preston

Riding in the El Dorado with the top down on that one-lane highway, her “baby” at the wheel, she felt a sense of expansion and freedom she hadn’t felt for a while. It had been way too long since she had been out on the open road and she was ripe for this trip. Her sense of adventure was open full throttle!

They were headed out to the Kiva in Marble, CO. National Geographic had sent them to get the story and photos. In this particular Kiva, no photography had ever been allowed prior to this moment in time. She had written a story, and he had provided the eerily intuitive photographs for Cowboys and Indians magazine that had won the stamp of approval of Colorado’s Ute elders. Permission to cover the Marble, CO Kiva was now being granted to them by a local Ute tribe because they had proven their ability to “become native,” to get inside indigenous ways of thinking and being, and to truly understand and empathize from the inside-out. The two of them, the writer and the photographer, saw it as part of their unified mission in life to portray these beautiful people as the allies to humanity and stewards of the Earth that they truly are, and to illuminate their ancient ways of knowing in an attempt to create an alternative consciousness to the current forces of destruction being pursued by the rampant, self-absorbed consumerism of the patriarchy.

Discovering and disseminating indigenous ways of being
are also part of the effort to liberate the divine-feminine principle that has been suppressed for over 2,000 years. Our heroine also believes that freeing the divine-feminine from mental slavery is freeing herself. As Lilla Watson, the aboriginal activist said, "If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time.  But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together."

The dynamic duo couldn't wait to investigate! The stories and images they collaborated on were nothing short of magical. She was forever mystified by him, the photographer, who could convey a whole story via a single image. He thought in abstract images, which was very much like indigenous peoples’ ways of knowing. Like the Lakota Sioux elder who had reportedly “seen” the arrival of the white man’s “iron horses” (locomotives) before they ever set foot on the continent, the photographer was her very own “noble savage.” To her, he was a vessel for the Muses, an open channel through which the universe could express and experience itself, and he was a compassionate person, to boot. In other words, he reflected the best parts of herself back to her.


Their current assignment was exactly what they wanted their lives to be about. Previously, she had shown him a childhood photo of herself, her nose buried in a children's book entitled, “Magic Tricks!” She thought this snapshot was as close as one could get to a photograph of her soul. Over the years, she had come to believe deeply in real magic. Not the “Hogwarts” kind, but the kind that sees a tree grow from a seed, a fetus emerge from the womb … and she never ceased to be amazed by the genius of the designs behind our natural earthly systems. To watch lightning as it strikes in the sky and think how similar it is to the flow of lava running down the side of a volcano, or a mountain stream flowing to the sea, or to the blood that runs through our veins, or the veins of a leaf, or the branches in a tree, and on and on. These energy flows are repeating patterns all throughout Nature. What do these similarities tell us?
She had the feeling it all had something to do with being created "in the image of" the Source of all things. This was something she'd like to discuss with a Shaman.

As she ruminated, the warm desert sun and wind caressed her, and left her feeling warm, open, beautiful, content: like
a good lover should. She thought about the symbolism of the Sun in Native American and other cultures: “Father Sun,” representing masculine energies. “Masculine” in this sense having nothing to do with gender,  but referring to action-oriented energies rather than activities like listening, receiving, or gestating ideas, which are traditionally “feminine,” intuitive energies. She mused that this man, whose shoulder she was now resting her head upon, was like the Sun: a life-affirming force with whom she knew she could grow. She, on the other hand, was more a symbol of the feminine, receptive energies: incredibly intuitive, imaginative, a good listener, always brewing ideas to be birthed at a later time. She knew that he had appeared in her life at the right time: just when she had become aware of her need to honor the masculine energies within herself. Yes, he was her Love, but he was also a teacher sent by the Universe: the Creator, the Great Spirit, God. He would never say that he was a teacher because he didn’t feel that he was. She, however, knew that he was teaching her to be more action-oriented. Not action-oriented like a bull-dozer that moves forward with no consciousness about how its progress affects others or the environment, but action-energies that are tempered with compassion (the feminine) rather than tyranny (the human ego run-amuck). He was teaching merely by being who he was. She knew that she had a singular tendency to focus only on the intuitive, inner states of being because she concurred with what Carl Jung had said in his autobiography: that the inner world was equally as fascinating as anything happening in the outside world. She knew she needed balance, though. She needed to get more active in the physical world about bringing her ideas to life. In many cultures, there is a saying: “when the student is ready, the teacher will appear.” It was this frame of mind that she was in when she decided to march right down to National Geographic and apply for a job as a staff writer. She had the awareness, and knew that a teacher would appear. And lo and behold, who should appear when she was given her first assignment? The photographer. The moment she met him, she knew who he was. But she didn’t say anything for quite some time because, as we all know, it takes men a little longer to catch-on to such things. (wink). It was better for him to realize it in his own time. And time is something that we all have more of than we think we do.


To the photographer, she was fair of face, easy on the eyes. Anyone could see that. What others might not realize at first glance is that her Spirit was as voluptuous as her physical form. He saw that she was a child of nature and he loved that about her. She had a connection with nature that turned something on inside of her, something primal, transcendental. He loved that she could go out into the woods alone for hours and come back to read him the most amazing poetry that she had written while communing with her Muses: the woodland fairies, ancestral spirits, or higher self. Whatever that something was … she was connected to it. She created
magic for others, and he adored her for it. He felt it was his job to protect her from human parasites that would prey on her and take advantage of her good nature. This had already happened to her many times before she met him. He also knew that she could be hard on herself because she had unconsciously taken on the role of her calloused childhood care-takers. She had a terrible time trusting people and could be very hard on herself. He understood this and saw that she was becoming more aware with every passing day. The more aware she became, the more the distrust seemed to disappear. His unconditional acceptance of her had helped her immensely, and he knew she needed that. She recognized this too, and as a result, grew more trusting and loving as time went on.

He was a wise person. He understood the fundamental duality of the universe and knew that because we are all mirror images of the universe, all of humanity contains this duality as well. Dark and light, feminine and masculine, chaos and bliss. Can't have one without the other, and you must take the bad with the good. To that end, he gave her space when she needed it, and knew that when she was ready and had processed whatever was troubling her, she would return renewed, having spent time alone with her Spirit. She had purity and passion all rolled into one. He knew that Beauty, as an expression of divinity, was the thinking behind the painting of the Sistine Chapel, and she personified this aesthetic for him. She was his very own archetypal Venus-Lillith-incarnate.

The moment they arrived at the Kiva, a shift in consciousness hit them instantly. Like a scene in a Castaneda novel where Carlos receives a smack in the back from his mentor Don Juan Matus, propelling him into a new dimension, they had landed in another reality.

A Ute elder greeted them at the entrance to the Kiva as dry red dust from the surrounding hills swirled around the trio like spirit dancers or whirling dervishes. Their guide seemed young for an “elder,” but they both knew that he must be very well respected by his tribe in order to have been chosen to guide them. He introduced himself as Swift Eagle, or “Swifty” for short, and he invited them to join him in a cleansing, purifying ceremony called Smudging. Before entering the kiva, he burned some sage sticks tied in a small bundle and used an eagle feather to fan the purifying smoke around their heads and around the perimeter of their bodies. The duo held hands, closed their eyes and took long luxurious breaths, inhaling the scent of the sacred herb. Swifty explained softly that the way we breathe is a metaphor for the way we relate to one another on this planet. Short, staccato breaths equate with quick, superficial encounters. Long, deep breaths indicate taking one's time to listen and relate. The writer in her observed that Swifty’s skin was like a road-map of the local terrain. The dryness of the desert had carved deep grooves into his reddish-brown skin as wind and water had carved deep canyons and valleys into Mother Earth.


Properly purified, they began the descent into the kiva. The photographer knew that his soul-twin was noting the symbolism of every moment. He remembered her previously telling him that according to Jungian analysis, descending stairs in dreams represents entry into the world of the unconscious: dreams, archetypes, and the collective knowledge of all our ancestors’. He knew she was thinking about this as they descended the stairway, and he looked at her with a knowing smile as he squeezed her hand.

They were inside the most magical of places, the Kiva, the cave, the womb of mother Earth. The place of entering in. Dark, dank, and mysterious, a sanctuary. A place of transformation. Swifty suggested that like the female womb, the kiva was a portal for spirit to travel from one reality to another.
They sat on the cool, red earth as Swifty built a fire. He explained that he was going to chant some prayers in his native tongue to invoke spirit helpers and that the two of them were welcome to vocalize as well, in whatever fashion they chose: words, prayers, song; as long as their intent was to call for guidance from Spirit. Our heroine was not only a writer, but fancied herself a singer as well, and she began to improvise vocals that were hybrids of Lakota tunes and South African rhythms she had heard before. The photographer added to the cacophony by praying out loud for all the good things he wanted to happen for his family and friends.The acoustics in the Kiva were astounding and created a sense of euphoria that was exhilarating. She secretly wished she could have a recording of the chant because it struck her as improvisation, creativity, and spirituality at their finest. There was no need to even break them down into separate categories like that. They were all one. She sneaked a tiny peak at her love. His eyes were closed and he was smiling. They were both ecstatic. Soon, Swifty began to wind-down his chanting and they followed suit.
After a moment or two of silence, Swifty asked them to clear their minds and join him on a journey back in time. He chanted the word, “remember” over and over, for what seemed like an eternity, and she sensed he was entering a trance. He had asked them to allow images or pictures to enter their mind’s eye. For a while, she saw nothing and decided to just focus on her breathing. As she relaxed more deeply, she began to see quick flashes, like photos projected on a screen. They seemed to be images of the middle ages: castles, horses, sword fighting, lots of mud, and dreary looking weather. She thought that it was filthy, this locale she was seeing, and she wouldn’t want to live there. But just as she had this thought, Swifty said softly, “try not to judge what you’re seeing. Just observe.” (A bit eerie how he seemed to know what she was thinking.) Soon the images became like a movie, and she had the feeling she was watching a story reminiscent of Joan of Arc, messenger of God. She found this interesting because the mythology behind her own ruling planet, Mercury, is that Gemini (her zodiac sign) is the “messenger of the Gods."


She felt a bit like Joan of Arc, in that relating information about, or from, “the divine” was part of her life’s purpose. She was a spiritual devotee, one who believed that all paths lead to the divine, even those that seem dark or difficult. Sometimes humans can be so dense or preoccupied with trivial, mundane things that the universe has to create tragedy or some type of pain or hardship in order to wake people up, so that we learn the lessons we came here to learn and move to the next level of consciousness. She thought about how dense she must have been because it had taken a lot of pain, years of it, in order to absolutely break her heart in a manner that would force it to stay open and let love flow freely in and out. The biggest mistake she had made was making the pain a part of her identity, believing herself a victim. However, in the end, Pain had been transformational and she had cocooned herself from society for a while in order to really heal. Emerging from the chrysalis of healing, she felt that new life was beginning inside of her; she was seeing life from a new vantage point. She was feeling free these days, but the price she had paid for that freedom was not unlike that of a soldier at war. In the end, she became so fed up with being in pain that she had gathered up all her force of will and changed her life. Pain is one of the most powerful teachers that we have in this life. Transforming that pain into compassion via empathy is the greatest triumph of the human spirit. Further, transforming empathy into action, according to Nelson Mandela, that "respects and enhances the freedom of others" is a soulful goal that can lead to an alternate reality of unity, rather than one of fear and domination. She knew well from personal experience that sometimes one has to go through darkness in order to find the light. She knew, from having gone deep within herself, to places where most people fear to tread, that light and dark, masculine or feminine (or any opposite energies) exist within one another, not separately. And it's not true that light is good while darkness is bad. The purpose of life is to integrate these opposing energies within ourselves … sometimes a lonely and daunting path … sometimes alive and ecstatic. Like now. She couldn’t wait to hear what her love was experiencing.

He was seeing a lot of black. The darkness reminded him of outer-space. He thought about all the times they’d gone camping and stared up at the night sky, the stars, the cosmos, and felt something sublime, an affinity, a recognition that “outer-space” exists within himself. He had first gotten in touch with his “inner-space” while taking acting classes in college. He had gone so far inside himself as an actor attempting to portray another human being that he felt he had gone to another place, a place beyond himself, beyond empathy, where he could tap into universal consciousness. There were these moments he had experienced onstage, where time stopped and there were no thoughts, only a hyper-real sense of being fully in the moment, where nothing else mattered but the awareness of this moment.

But he had never heard his fellow actors describe any such experiences, for them it was all about the ego, and after a while that superficial quality led him away from acting to seek
others like himself. He had found the love of his life, his soul-twin through photo-journalism, and together they were seeking a community of like-minded souls, which is what had led them to this very moment.

The blackness behind his closed lids had turned into a swirling purple haze, the color of spiritual “sight.” He saw images of bats: sleeping, flying, hanging upside down. Later, Swifty explained that bats are symbols of transformation, a reflection of what is transpiring deep within the psyche.


Presently, Swifty said he was going to blindfold the duo for their climb back up the ladder and their re-entrance into ordinary reality. The blindfold represented the veil between the worlds. When they reached the top they would begin to see life anew with the insights they had gained in the Kiva. When they got to the top of the ladder, Swifty explained that as they returned to the surface, it would be as if they were emerging from the womb of Mother Earth. So, they climbed up the ladder and sat at the opening of the kiva in silence until Swifty came up to take the blindfolds off. He asked them to each come up with an intention that they wanted to carry out into the world with them. He gave them each a candle, and as they were lit, Swifty asked them to speak their intention aloud. Verbalizing creates a vibration in the material world that aids in bringing intentions out of the world of thought and into physical reality. As she spoke her intention, she became overwhelmed by a heightened sense of reality. She began to cry with the recognition of the sheer beauty of this world we live in. At that moment, she felt that everything in the world was perfect and beautiful and as it should be. She realized that even during difficult times, things are actually unfolding as they should. Sometimes difficult events in our lives help us see where we have gotten off-track, or they give us the experience we will need to deal with what lies on the road ahead. But it was this feeling that everything was as it should be that filled her with wonder.
And if the two of them could find a community of people that were truly interested in doing the same, then they really could create a little bit of heaven on earth. It’s like Margaret Mead said, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”
She thought about this man by her side and what an absolute miracle it was that he appeared in her life: her mystic man, her best friend, partner, and fellow mischief-maker. If she were to interpret her life as a waking dream, she realized that he was a mirror, a part of herself being reflected back to her. Loving him was loving the deepest parts of herself, and in turn, loving the source that created us all.

Suddenly, she remembered a line from a play. The play was that old chestnut, “Our Town,” and Emily Gibbs asks, “Does anyone ever realize life while they live it? Every, every moment?” And she was sure that there were people who did. Thornton Wilder may have been one. Swifty may be one, Buddha, Jesus, the Dalai Lama, Ghandi, Martin Luther King, the avatars in India. She longed to be like them, to fully realize life and her soul’s true purpose.

Inner Genius

"In ancient times, everyone was considered to possess inner genius. It was a kind of guardian spirit that accompanied a person through life and helped one overcome odds and achieve personal heights. We've lost touch with this original meaning of genius (related etymologically to the fabled genie in the lamp) in all our concern over IQ testing and similar nonsense. It's time we brought it back."
Thomas Armstrong, PhD

Recently, a man who had read part of a play that I am currently writing, asked me: "how can this character claim to be "every-woman"?! If she can be "everyone," then what is to stop me from being you or you from being me?" To which I replied, "Exactly!"

Exploring this question is what motivates my very life and has led me to explore and experience myself as a poet. It occurred to me recently that years of experience in the Theater as an actor helped me develop me the very tools I would need to tap into the "poet within." It would seem that in terms of my own evolution as an artist and a human being, I am no longer happy to merely regurgitate and interpret other people's words. I have a compelling need to discover my own "voice" through poetry, which for me, is a spiritual journey.

Ever-fascinated by all subjects esoteric and mystical, I feel I am exploring the pathways that connect us all through poetry. When people say that we as a human race are "one," I believe that. I feel that by exploring the poetry that exists with in me, I am actually practicing a form of ancient Gnosis where the self is the ultimate portal to higher consciousness. The adage "know thyself" is Gnostic and contains more wisdom than people realize. Through the relationship I have created with the deepest, most cavernous places of my own being, I am learning to navigate my own inner labyrinth, and in doing so, seem to have found a portal, a tunnel that seems to lead me to a universal consciousness.

As an actor, I sometimes had what I like to call "quantum moments" onstage where I was able to exist for a few moments in a state of consciousness where it seemed that the "I" that was fearful and small and separate, no longer existed. In these moments, the "I or "me" that has a distinct form with visual and physical boundaries, would fall away and be momentarily forgotten, like I imagine an out of body experience might be. I focused my attention so deeply inside myself that there was only consciousness and a sense of calm and contentment. In every-day life we seem to buy into these walls and boundaries that show where you stop and I begin, to say this is where my country ends and yours begins, to state: "this is my home, not yours." Or, we observe these lines that tell us this is my skin, and that is the bark of a tree, and they are not the same. Many spiritualities teach that this thinking is an illusion, that the tree and the human, the bark and the skin, are facades in this 3D world of form that mask the consciousness that lies within. It is consciousness that unites us all. There really is no separation. This is the greatest fallacy, or dilemma, facing the human race, preventing our evolution, and allowing us to stay under the control of an elite few who know that if they keep us distracted from our true power via media and marketing, we will never tap into our true potential as spiritual beings. And by subjugating our own power, we enable them to remain in control, and allow them to continue the patriarchal profanity that they call "reality." Television and all of the gadgetry that creates constant noise, prevents us from hearing our own voices, our own wisdom. This wisdom begins to ring out loud and clear when we tap into the silence of our being. Poetry is but one means of tapping into that eternal source of power and wisdom.
When others hear my poetry and respond to me with an embrace, I see that gesture as confirmation that I have tapped into that universal stream of consciousness that is available to all of us. I have gone so deeply inside myself that I have touched a place not unlike "deep space." I imagine this place to be Carl Jung's "collective unconscious" which refers to that part of a person's unconscious that is common to all human beings. Jung said that it contains archetypes, the language of dreams, and these symbols are manifested by all people in all cultures. These symbols are said to exist prior to experience and are instinctual.

Sometimes I access this symbolic language through my dreams. Some of my best work comes out of the symbolism of dreams. Sometimes I access this symbolic language while awake. I see pictures or images in my imagination and then try to translate them into words. Other artists translate their visions into paintings or sculptures. But, the medium that seems to best suit my nature is that of words and language. As an actor, I used visualization techniques to refine my performances in my head before performing them in reality. Now, I improvise dialogues in my imagination with characters of my own creation, and sometimes these visualizations become a poem or a play.

Conversely, I have also created poetry by first allowing my mind to quiet itself of all thoughts and dialogue, to become a "tabula rasa." Eventually, out of the darkness and quiet, pictures or images emerge, and flash across the movie-screen in my mind. (For this reason, this coming to know the quiet and darkness within, I am absolutely not "afraid of the dark." For what lies within the darkness can be illuminating. I know that what happens inside me is reflected in external reality. For instance, people often chastise me for walking by myself at night or for hiking alone. To which I say, "Pshaw!" for I know that walking alone at night or hiking alone is an external reflection of what is happening inside me - a reflection of my learning to navigate through, and becoming comfortable with, the darker spaces of my being . Jung called it "integration." It is the process of coming to know the yin and yang, the dark and light, the feminine and masculine energies within myself. The more I learn about and befriend the darkness within myself, the less I fear the "shadow" in others). Mining myself for the poetry within, allows me to observe images in the darkness of the movie -theater in my mind (my imagination). At first, I just try to observe the images without attaching any meaning to them or trying to "figure them out." I find that if I jot these images down in a journal, then put them aside for a few days, oftentimes the images will manifest in my waking world when I travel to a new geographic area I have not been to before; or I may meet someone while I'm running errands who says something that creates an "aha!" moment, and my mind jumps back to the image I saw while I sat in quiet contemplation and some meaning begins to evolve. Often, these "aha" moments turn out to be a clue to an answer I am currently seeking in my life, or, it can be like a breadcrumb, leading me down a new path in life. After a few days of allowing the images to gestate in my subconscious, I will actively free-flow associations onto paper. For me, writing it all out in long-hand feels organic. Then, after having written a page or two, when nothing else seems to want to reveal itself, I actively attempt to craft a poem. At this point, I can see a message beginning to take shape out of the free-flow. This process of crafting the poem is exciting, like solving a mystery.

In the past I have been inspired by Hemingway's terse, clipped, journalistic style of writing, and I let that inform my poetry. Efficiency of words is key in poetry. Also, as an actor, I am always inspired by Shakespeare, who knew not only the current vernacular-usage of a word, but also knew the etymology. Thus, when Shakespeare chose a word, he chose the one that would embody double-entendres or convey triple and quadruple levels of meaning. He was also a mystic. He knew the ancient wisdom of the cycles and rhythms in nature. He was often commissioned by Royals to write plays, but within these political plays one also finds the language of ancient alchemy, the tarot, and astrology - which all carry within them the language of dreams, archetypes, and symbols. Elizabethan audiences understood this language very well as the more intuitive forms of knowledge were still within their ever-day lexicon. Shakespeare's plays were poetry. Poetry is alchemy. And the purpose of alchemy has always been a search for the mystical correspondences between the material and the immaterial.

Kathryn Preston

Child of Nature

When we last checked in with our protagonist, she was in Marble, CO at the Kiva contemplating the play “Our Town,” and the character Emily Gibbs asking, “Does anyone ever realize life while they live it? Every, every minute?” And she was sure that there were people who did. Thornton Wilder may have been one. Buddha, Jesus, the Dalai Lama, Ghandi, Martin Luther King, the avatars in India. She longed to be like them, to fully realize life and her soul’s true purpose.

Today, we find our beloved heroine standing in the middle of the North Star Nature Preserve near Aspen, crying. Elated and saddened at the same time, she feels so alive with the energy and beauty of natural-majesty all around her, yet feels her spirit being bludgeoned by this repetitious pattern of having to take meaningless jobs where she caters to people’s superficial egos and meaningless desires.

She is standing in the middle of Creation, at the edge of a pond, searching the protective peaks all around her, pleading with Jesus and all the ascended masters: "how do I create the reality that I want to live, the one where I am like Anne Labastille in Woodswoman, or like Drunvalo Melchizedek, who gave up mundane society and walked off Into The Wild to live in the mountains and forests? How do I get back to the Garden?”

Ever the rebel and freedom-fighter, she’s not even remotely interested in the never-never land reality of some glamorous second-home-playground to the rich and famous, but is soulfully and ardently enchanted with the thought of living in harmony with nature, in living simply, in living off the land, not taking any more than she needs, and enjoying the roses along the way -- like Henry David Thoreau. She knows in her heart she will be living her Truth when she is learning how to navigate wild terrain, living off the land, chopping her own firewood, because she never feels more alive than when engaged in a nurturing dialectic between Mother Nature and her own Wild Nature. How many times has she envied women who know all about herbs, berries, trees, and all the wild plants of the earth: which are edible? which are not? which are good for tinctures and medicinal uses? which make the best pies? To be able to read animal tracks and habits, to understand the cycles within cycles and seasons within seasons the way tribal peoples do. She has been longing for a teacher, a soul-mate, a miracle, a deus-ex-machina to appear and lead her to that cozy little log cabin in the woods that she yearns for. Not a log-home Mc Mansion, but a rustic one-room cabin, with a woodstove and enough room for herself and her fellow mischief-maker; a place of simplicity and clarity from which to learn the ancient ways.

She recalls days in childhood when she was taken to the woods to cut down trees for firewood, calling “Tim-berrrrr!” at the top of her lungs; the gorgeous scent of pine-soaked days making her ecstatic; days spent gathering sap in buckets to make syrup; days in the forest picking blueberries; endless hours spent traipsing through the woods following myriad paths, seeing miracle after miracle … these have been her happiest hours on Earth.

She hikes into the unknown with reckless abandon, exploring a new and mysterious path, and suddenly her "baby" shows up after been "on assignment." She grins as she slowly sizes him up while he approaches; he radiates warm sunshine, and she is ecstatic. He winks at her and says, "Hello, my Love. Did you miss me?"

Like her, he is a journalist/photographer: an imaginative Intuitive, a creative-writer, an visual/abstract thinker. He longs to live in a log cabin in the woods, where together they can pursue their love of writing, and their desire to photograph and be-one-with-nature, with full fervor. After sharing the trail and baring their souls over countless hours, he stops her dead in her tracks and tells her that she is his best friend and ally, and asks if she really wants to be free!?! And if she does, will she go with him and really do what they’ve been talking about doing? She doesn’t even hesitate. She smiles that secret smile. In her mind, they're already gone. They are already deep in the beautiful wilderness, miles from anywhere, building their dream homestead, and they are oh so blissfully happy.