Several years ago, I did something I’ve never done before. I got in my car and headed West. I had no set plan or timetable. There were no major catastrophes happening in my life. But I was still transitioning between an old me with kids at home to a new empty nest me, and I had no idea how that looked. Also, I had been kind of uninspired. Nothing was particularly “wrong,” but nothing was vibrantly, creatively alive, either.
So one fall morning I loaded up my Subaru with books, journals, camera and clothes and headed towards the vast emptiness of West Texas, and then beyond to New Mexico.
Looking at my iPhone map, I saw someplace called Silver City, New Mexico that sounded intriguing, so I turned that direction. On the second day there, after a long, beautiful mountain rim hike, I decided to call home and check in. I opened my backpack to pull out my phone… and discovered it was gone. Somewhere along the trail it had fallen out. And despite several hours of searching, it was nowhere to be found.
I panicked. Not only was it expensive (it was the latest version, bought a week earlier), but it was my GPS as I headed into unknown territory. I felt vulnerable, even more lost than when I left home.
For the next several days I blindly felt my way through the town, pulling over to ask directions of strangers, trying to read paper maps and finding myself on unplanned adventures when I made yet another wrong turn.
As scary as this felt for me, something also began to shift. The limiting box of my own habits and beliefs began to crack apart as I lit up new neural pathways. Creative possibilities began pouring into the spaces that had been filled with my staid routines and fearful imaginings. As I drove under the expansive New Mexico skies, it was as if my heart and soul opened wide enough to meet them. Something was taking flight.
On my last morning in Silver City, I remember standing on the edge of a mountain. The town below was waking up and I could hear the muted echoes of a distant school band as lights turned on in the toy-like houses. Everyone was busy being human with their 1,001 activities, distractions, obligations and dramas. I understood it.
And yet here I stood enveloped in deep quiet, held by the eternal spirit of the mountain, looking up at the brightening sky. That small identity as a human scurrying around and planning dissolved as I stepped into a bigger identity as part of a timeless universe. Nothing else mattered. I was home…
A short time later, I drove back down the mountain to gather my suitcases at the AirBnB. When I opened the door, the innkeeper ran up to me excitedly. Someone had found my phone! Evidently it had fallen under a bush, and a curious dog had pulled the owner over to see what was there. Not only had it been found just before I left town, but just ahead of a rainstorm that would have ruined it.
I love those winks from the Universe. Yes, I learned my lesson. Sometimes we have to let go of the familiar in order to move into fresh and bigger possibilities.
As I continued my travels, which lasted almost a month, I would have almost daily “big” moments. My creativity soared as poems flew onto the page, my senses awakened, and new ideas arose around every corner.
This April I am returning to New Mexico to lead a retreat in Taos – Greening your Creative Spirit – and stand under the vast skies I love so much with a group of women as we all tap into our freedom and creativity. Like taking a full, decadent stretch, we will expand to our fullness and release the creative kinks and tightness of old habits. It will be a place of transformation – not from losing an iPhone, but from reconnecting with the GPS of our creative souls…
Upcoming Events
A Spring Retreat in Taos: Greening your Creative Spirit
April 7 to 12, 2019
Mabel Dodge Luhan House, Taos, New Mexico
Sometimes we shift slowly, and other times our creative spirit is ready for a big infusion of renewal, fresh ideas, inspiration and expansive beauty to really break free. Join us this April for a refreshing re-connection with our deepest, most creative selves. Read more or register here.
Morning Rituals to Awaken Creativity and Happiness
Friday, February 8 from 12 to 1:30 p.m.
Seton Cove, Austin, Texas
Let me help you move out of stale, stuck ways of starting your day and into fresh ways that amp up your creativity and happiness. Some of these can even be done in 5 minutes before you get out of bed! To read more or register for this February 8 lunch hour workshop, go here.
Power Hour: Unlock your authentic writing voice to attract the perfect clients
Wednesday, February 27 from 11:30 to 1 p.m.
Whole Foods Domain
If you want to attract clients with your words, but the writing just isn’t happening or isn’t connecting, then join us! (This event is through Texas Women in Business, but all are welcome.) Some of the takeaways from this lunch hour presentation will be:
- Learn the two biggest blocks to writing easily and authentically… and how to get around them.
- Find out what your current relationship with writing really is (hint: it’s not what you think)
- Learn a powerful practice you can do at home to quickly dissipate writing resistance and jump start flow.
- Move forward not with “push,” but the idea that “discipline is remembering what you want.”
- See where your authentic voice is hiding… and how to release her.
To read more and register, go here.