Dear Friends,
I haven't posted a new blog in over three months. So much was happening and it was all so fun that I either didn't take the time to stop and write, or just didn't know which of all the amazing occurrences to pick out to share. Both I think.
Summer in Sedona is delightful: hiking in the magical red rocks, swimming and picnics at the swimming hole on Oak Creek. My little dog Cheney is a champ--runs all over the trails and loves to swim in the creek. John and I and Cheney took John's airstream down to Rocky Point, Mexico for a few days where we enjoyed swimming in the Sea of Cortez, yes, even Cheney swam a bit, but mostly eating fresh seafood, drinking beer and margaritas and smoking Cuban cigars. It was a profoundly spiritual experience. Really! Especially having fish tacos and beer for breakfast in an outdoor restaurant overlooking the sea!
I also had the wonderful privilege of co-facilitating the first installment of Earth School for Souls. The series of classes was a great success, with some of the participants telling us it was the most powerful thing they'd ever done. The experience of opening the way for others to heal and awaken was both humbling and exhilarating beyond description. I loved doing it!
In the middle of August I hosted a wedding reception at my home for my dear friends, Pam and Jim. I turned the house over to the team of volunteers who removed all the furniture from the great room and proceeded to turn it into a party venue, complete with dance floor and sound system! The preparations were a powerful example of people coming together egolessly to serve friends, working, playing, laughing and putting on a terrific event.
Meanwhile, my landlady announced that she was raising my rent in January, so I started thinking about what I would do. At the same time, I was receiving lots of emails from my old art school in Scottsdale (Brio Fine Arts, I highly recommend them) announcing some very interesting classes for the fall and winter. So, after many agonizing days and nights of indecision, I decided to move out of the house and spend the winter back down in the Valley taking art classes. Besides, I love the warm winters down there. So, I packed everything up, put it in storage and headed down the hill.
I am doing an experiment in letting go. Letting go of having my own home, not exactly sure of what comes next--all very interesting experiences. I should say, however, that where I've landed for the next few months is pretty wonderful. My good friends, Steve and Karen, suggested that I stay with them, as they would be away much of the fall months. So, I'm living in a lovely, large home on a golf course, complete with a housekeeper twice a month! Maybe there is something to this letting go business!
Art is coming along too. I had felt pretty stuck and uncreative, and all it took was a few classes to revive the spark and get me unstuck. I've completed several paintings I'd started in Sedona, but knew there was something off about them. I can now, for the first time, say I love my work!
This experiment is calling forth all the tools in my spiritual toolbox. I'm back in the Valley of the Sun, where I lived for 12 years, but I'm not the same person who lived there then. It is a magical time; I feel more at home in my skin, more at peace with life, and happier that I could ever have imagined possible. I catch glimpses at unexpected times of the flow of Divine Creation in ordinary life happening all around me. I am able in these moments to see myself as a cell in the great body of the Divine expressing itself in so many different ways as this thing we know as Life. It is a great joy and blessing to see and feel this, to take a deep breath and jump into it with both feet and let the flow of it take you to greater adventures.
Speaking of which, I have recently embarked on a new adventure which I will be writing about in the weeks to come. Yes, weeks, not months this time. Blessings everyone!
