Part 10 of an Ongoing Experiment
By the end of Month Three, I could finally see Colorado beginning to emerge in my Solar Return experiment. Month One had felt almost entirely Tampa: systems, structure, administration, health, workflow, catching up. Month Two introduced more public visibility. Month Three widened the circle even more: journalists, family, friends, creative projects, and a stronger sense that my work was moving beyond the private machinery of production.
Month Four has been quieter on the outside.
That doesn’t mean less happened. In some ways, more did. But the movement this month wasn’t social or public. The journalists were busy with other stories. Family and friends were occupied with their own projects. What took center stage instead was the less glamorous, absolutely necessary work of tending the systems that make the rest of my life possible.
This month felt like stewardship.
Stewardship, Not Productivity
That word matters because “productivity” is too shallow for what I’m seeing in this Solar Return year. Yes, I’m producing a tremendous amount of work — finishing projects, cleaning up websites, restructuring workflows, editing books, creating soundtracks, using AI tools in ways that are saving me months of effort. But the larger pattern isn’t output. It’s care. It’s maintenance. It’s going back through the neglected corners of my creative and professional life and clearing what has been quietly blocking the next stage.
Much of Month Four went to project and website housecleaning. I made progress on issues that had been lingering for months, in some cases years. I didn’t get as much done in my physical house as I might have liked, but that makes sense when I look at where my attention actually went. The house I was cleaning was mental, digital, creative, and professional: old files, old friction points, old unfinished loops that make future work harder than it needs to be.
That is very Tampa. More specifically, it is very 6th house. The Tampa version of my Solar Return chart put so much emphasis on the 6th house that I first read it as work, health, and daily systems. Four months in, I think the better word is stewardship. I am stewarding my body, my books, my business, my website, my health data, my creative catalog.
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Restoration of Capacity
Health was a major part of that stewardship. Physical therapy is getting very good results, and I can now do things I haven’t been able to do for years. That feels significant. This isn’t maintenance or damage control. It’s restoration of capacity. After months of appointments, testing, and management, Month Four brought evidence that the work is actually helping.
There were still challenges. The Saharan dust cloud over Florida triggered some respiratory issues, but I mostly stayed ahead of them. My blood sugar had a good month overall, though it started drifting higher toward the end. The difference is that I’m not simply reacting. I’m logging data, looking for patterns, experimenting with biohacking, using technology — especially AI — to understand what my body is doing over time. The theme is not crisis. It is pattern recognition and correction.
One Creative Ecosystem
The same thing happened in my creative work. Month Four was creatively satisfying in a grounded way. I drafted eight new books, worked edits on several more, brainstormed new projects, and began thinking more deliberately about writing to market. I also completed and published a long-standing business book, one of those projects that had been waiting for the right combination of tools, energy, and timing. This month, that combination finally arrived.
The new tools mattered. I found resources and workflows that helped me finish multiple projects, though I haven’t yet begun pushing them all out to the public. That looks more like a Month Five development. Month Four was the preparation phase: finishing, organizing, building the systems that will let the work move outward more smoothly when the time comes.
Creativity kept moving across formats, too. I made more soundtracks and music videos for my books, and I enjoyed the process. This is one of the more interesting developments of the year so far, because it doesn’t feel separate from the writing. It feels like an extension of the same impulse. The books, music, videos, websites, and workflow tools are starting to feel like parts of one ecosystem rather than disconnected projects competing for attention.
Colorado, Quieter but Not Absent
Colorado was quieter this month, but not absent.
The most unexpected relational thread was a deeper exchange with a cousin I haven’t spent much time with. We shared music and memories about “back home,” and that surprised me. It wasn’t dramatic or life-altering. But it had warmth, history, and emotional resonance. That feels like a subtler expression of the relational themes I expected from the Colorado chart: not partnership drama, but connection through shared memory and belonging.
This is one of the lessons I’m starting to take from the experiment. I expected Colorado, with its strong relationship and visibility signatures, to arrive loudly if it arrived at all. Instead, it comes through when there is an available channel: a reporter needing expertise, a family member reconnecting, a memory opening a door. It doesn’t override the Tampa foundation. It moves through whatever the Tampa foundation makes possible.
That may be the real pattern. Tampa is the engine. Colorado is the widening field.
The engine is still doing most of the work. The systems, the health practices, the administrative cleanup, the finished projects all belong to the Tampa side of the experiment. But the field is still widening. The work is becoming more shareable. The relationships that matter are showing up in quieter but meaningful ways. The public-facing pieces may be getting ready to move in Month Five.
Month Four Was Consolidation
So if Month One was catching up, Month Two was producing, and Month Three was expanding, Month Four was consolidation. Not a pause. Tuning the machinery. Clearing backlog. Tending the systems that will support whatever comes next.
After four months, I no longer think of this experiment as Tampa versus Colorado in any simple way. The better question may be how the two charts are cooperating. Tampa gives me the structure to build. Colorado describes what can happen once that structure begins to reach beyond me.
This month, the year did not erupt. It matured. That may be more useful.
Following the whole experiment? All my Solar Return posts live on the Solar Return Page.
Where does fate enter your chart? The Vertex marks it—and the encounters that activate it.
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