Good morning friends….what a time it has been in. With the fall of several scheduled programs for this summer came a stranger to my midst…a queer kind of boldness that wanted only to invest further…Where was this forward momentum coming from in an undeniable time of uncertainty? Clearly it was not found in an outward gaze…all around me I saw flailing and dreariness, and an energy of sinking. Many of my colleagues who I checked in with were in similar circumstances…finding their programs with fewer people or cancelling and a sense of hesitation in the air. All this in a time that most needs us to do our personal work and find vision.
I stood on an edge that I could easily have fallen from…the weighted pull of an energy to give up was visceral and yet something else happened in me.
I don’t know exactly what equation was written in my heart, but I was tethered solidly to an inner surety. There was a solidity…perhaps from a trusted sanctity from my years of experience with this world of working in the realm of wild nature. . . . the wild nature I felt while listening to others’ stories as well as what surrounds me on earth. It has built something in me that was undeniable and I have watched it knit humans together in ways that are pungent and pervasive — indisputable to the constant drone of the mind attempting to deny the peace inherent in life. Something essential in me needed space and time to gestate fully and be birthed and I was being offered it.
Have you ever noticed that thing the mind does? For decades I experienced my mind as something of a war monger…it seemed that it wanted me to suffer…always rallying a cry of defiance to my experience…inviting me to counter, to circle, to worry, to repeat. This can at times be helpful, but it wasn’t until I started meditating and began to witness the nature of the mind that I could see its antics and allow it to play quietly in the side yard of my focus without me being pushed around by it.
With mindfulness...and what I now call soul-minded living, I have moved through my summer with a devotion to investing in the work of finding ways to expose and invite this work to others. . . to a broader audience. Over and over I asked what are the words, images, invitations that would encourage others to invest in their own souls? I trust a soulcentric way of being so fully that I was willing to see this loss of income as an opening to something else, even though my ego mind had some major concerns.
As a result of taking this time and with the guidance of a fantastic friend and soulwebsite designer, www.atkinsonvisions.com/ I introduced my new website and company to my world just days ago!!
Many of you are on that list but some of you aren't so let me usher you to its threshold. I’d be honored for you and my site to know each other.
If you are an advocate of soul work and nature-based work, please please, do me a favor and share my site with your mailing list or on social media … that’d be a huge gift, so thank you in advance!
I will soon be putting up a resource page that will have lots of fun things to support you along the way…videos, poetry, links to other websites, etc.
You'll see the preface on my website.
And second, you will see that in late February I am offering program in alliance with Sea Trek called Mind in the Waters! We will be kayaking, snorkling and whale watching in the Sea of Cortez and meeting in circle and wanders in island camps! This program will combine animal communication, dreams, mindfulness and imagery, and a bit of activism thrown in (by way of support). Animals and our relationship with them has forever been a source passion for me.
I believe that it is in these creatures of the deep can help us to find our way in these times.
It promises to be an outstanding experience and a once in a lifetime vacation with purpose!
People are already claiming their place....won't you?
It will be revealed soon!
Thank you all for your own ways of devoting yourself to soul-mindedness.