When you've been tagged twice for the same challenge, it's probably not the best form to ignore it! @mrprofessor AND @porters tagged me on this one, so hey, why not? And I've been loving reading through others posts and going - wow! - you wrote about that? And that's what you are into? It's a lovely way to get to know each other. I hope you're not sick of me from my 10 Random Things post!

It's not my fault anyway - I hear you have to blame @anomadsoul - you who challenged us to pick 10 posts that we would like everyone to read to get to know us a bit more! Rules at the end of this post.

I've been a steem addict since April, which is over six months now. Seems like six years or six minutes, depending on my mood! I'm either writing a daily post or working on @naturalmedicine curating posts or conducting interviews or chatting on Discord. Seems more chatting goes on there these days - is anyone else feeling the lack of commenting here? Is that because of the Hard Fork - are we too scared to post because we fear we'll lose resource credits or is it just a slow time?

When I started, I didn't know what to write about, and it took me a while to write my introduction post. That's when I met @mrprofessor, who tagged me for this challenge, so that's kinda wierd as I'm sure he's read nearly everything I've written, poor guy. I was worried no one cared about what I had to say, but he said he cared, and well, that was enough for me! Since then I've written all kinds of stuff - I don't have a theme and half the time I feel I'm just rambling!

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1. My Introduce Myself Post

Wow, I'm so shy in this post!! Thanks Steemit for helping me come out of the shadows! No way am I talking online though - I've still not done a face to face Dtube - eeek! I didn't even know how to use hyperlinks! Such a young Steem jedi...

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2. Breathing is Like the World Changing Seasons

I loved writing this post, as it was like a meditation in itself. I write about the interconnection between breath and the seasons.

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3. Tribe Steem Up Question of the Week: What Does it Mean to Be Human?

I love answering the questions of the week posed by @ecotrain and @tribesteemup, and more recently @naturalmedicine. In this one I get a little more creative and answer it more lyrically rather that factually. I'm proud of this one as people really responded to it, saying it moved them. I was crying when I wrote it! As I go through my old posts, I think it's the more creative ones that I like the most. I really love how Steemit has given me a creative outlet and the chance to fine tune my writing skills and emotionally express myself.

To be human means to feel joy. It is to recall the openness of childhood where unrestrained enthusiasm pores out of your heart and causes your hands to wave like little birds and diamonds to sparkle in your eyes so that this joy passes to everyone around you, who would yelp and squeal and exclaim if only they had remembered how. It is the tiny corners of your mouth that cannot help but turn up wards. It is the little things that you forgot you loved, like the way the skin of of a giraffe's neck folds in waves, or stepping out of the car on a crisp cold winter's night with whiskey in your belly and to look up and see a shooting star when you had forgotten that they existed at all. It is feeling the pulsing of the Earth around you so that you can feel your heartbeat with alongside it, as if nothing else exists but you and the wildness and beauty of all there is. It is rainbows. It is turning vinyl and beating drums at dawn as the dust eddies around your barefeet and a friend transfers kisses to your brow with glitter lined lips. The tiny unfurling of a fern frond, the rustling of a puppy, the first flowers that come out in spring when you weren't watching them, the card that drifts in with the post from far away to tell you that you are loved.

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4. Anxiety is Like Stripping Paint

I had to include a post about anxiety because some pretty magical stuff started happening when I talked about my anxiety on the blockchain. Turned out I wasn't the only one. @mountainjewel and I also spearheaded a challenge about it on @naturalmedicine. It's so important to reach out when you're suffering. YOU ARE NOT ALONE!

And yes, I’m so aware that these are layers and layers of conditioning and it’s by wrestling with that that the layers will eventually peel away, and underneath that is calm and ease and pure is-ness, but the layers are sticking and it’s like trying to get paint off with every thinner and scraper you’ve got but scraping your knuckles bloody in the process and still having thick and stubborn layers of paint ingrained into the bricks of the house you call your body.

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5. Save Our Outrage for the Things that Matter - We can Live without Single Use Plastics & Plastic Nightmares or Utopian Islands: We Are All Responsible Too

I felt good when these ones got shared and commented on a lot. Turned out I'm not the only one to care for the planet! I've written a few about my outrage re: single use plastics. Steemit can really help get important issues out there and talked about, well, it did before everyone started worrying about losing RC via comments!

It's impossible for us not to notice the plastic waste in Bali - great swathes of it line the roadside, and although tourist areas like Amed work to keep the beaches and streets clean for tourists, we notice little bits of it here and there - chocolate wrappers floating in the pebbles close to shore, a torn shred of a plastic bag that looms like jellyfish. The waters are generally clean, like the roads are generally clean, and one tends to block out these shreds of nightmarish evidence that the beautiful world we're visiting isn't quite perfect after all - and in fact, is quite dystopian.

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6. Mantra and the Unstruck Sound and The Relationship between Surfing and Yoga

I write about yoga and surfing every now and then, because they're some of my favourite things in the world to do, and bring me much joy.

In flow is the how we become beyond emotion - that's because we're just not aware of the ego self. In yoga, or when I'm having a good surf, I'm not really aware of 'me', time, or any other problems. My experience is smooth - a balance between challenge and ease, effort and allowing. I know I'm in flow, and I feel at peace.

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7. Blood Credits and Horses and Coo-ee and On Memory, My Father and Surfing

Looking at these two made me realise I haven't written a short story for the blockchain in ages, and need to do something about that. Steemit made me realise how much I love writing stories, and I think I'm okay at them! I do get a bit Australian gothic macabre - but I have won a couple of writing competitions here, which totally blew my mind!! I'm not convinced anyone reads them though...Blood credits was about selling limbs and body parts to survive in a post apocalyptic world, Horses is about ghosts and man-eating horses, and I've contributed to a chapter by chapter fiction horror too. I didn't even know I liked writing horror until Steemit, lol. Oh, the one about my father isn't a horror story... !

I should get down to writing more stories - what do you think?

8. Natural Medicine Introduction Post

Aw, my baby!! Me, @metametheus and @mountainjewel are stoked to run this account, promoting natural medicines and healing on the blockchain! Shameless plug - check us out! Come join us on the Discord! Banner below will give you the link.

With medical systems largely dominated by the interests of Pharmaceutical and Insurance companies, it can be hard to find our place within the current healing paradigms. So often these systems alienate the very people they profess to serve whilst padding their pockets as populations get sicker. Whilst western medicine has it's place, is it the only answer to our problems? @naturalmedicine believes wholeheartedly in alternatives, ones that we can practice at home and often prevent the onset of illness and disease and very often cure it. Natural remedies are as old as humanity, and in fact ‘alternative medicine’ was only labelled so to highlight it’s difference from ‘mainstream’ medicines a.k.a drug company endorsed medicines. This type of healing is time tested and proven and it’s our dream to connect Steemfolk with this information through @naturalmedicine on the Steem blockchain. Natural medicines are often simple and whole medicines, differing from the magic pill of Big Pharma. We want to bring natural medicines to you and highlight the natural medicine advocates on the Blockchain!

Since I write daily, there's a lot more I could share - gardening, natural medicines, vanlife, doing up our landrover, travel stories - but I need to get on with the Natural Medicine curation for tomorrow!! Hope you enjoyed this little post about me. It's awesome to go back and see how I've progressed over 7 months of constant Steemit, bar, of course, that pesky Hard Fork!

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The challenge was created by @anomadsoul.

• Only Steemians with more than 6 months in the platform or more than 100 posts made can join this challenge.
• You can only include posts of your authorship.
• Avoid crypto, politics and religious posts.
• Think of this challenge as your Steem blogging "resume or CV"
• Have fun.

Oh, a few more rules 😜

Nominate 3 other Steemians.

Use the tag #gettoknowme

Resteem this post (Not mandatory, but it would be cool as hell if everyone joined).

I'm going to tag @phillyc,whose writing I love and I haven't seen for a while, @ginnyannette, also a fabulous writer, and @sagescrub, who's starting this really cool seed for crypto thing, and who I only started to get to know recently. No obligation of course!

Hey, if you wanna join in, let me know in the comments and I'll tag you too! And please comment - it keeps the blockchain and my heart alive!

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If you're a supporter of all things natural healing, you might like to read our introductory post here. We'd also love to welcome you on Discord here!!