Dear reader friends,

Thank you for being so patient with me. It has been a while since I posted. Not for lack of desire or something to say. On the contrary, something huge is taking shape in my life, but how do I put into words that which defies definition? And how can I label an experience which has no name? These are the questions that haunt me each time I sit down to share my thoughts. Perhaps now something will come forth.

A little over a year ago my life was thrown out of focus while dealing with a traumatic event. It's not important to go into the details of that event. Suffice it to say, during and after the trauma, I was shell shocked.  I felt very little worth as a human being and my creative fire dwindled to a tiny ember.

I wondered what I was amounting to, what was all my toil and dream-building for, what good was I as an artist, visionary, entrepreneur? This would have been a good time to trust, as I had already learned that lesson. The last time I faced a major traumatic event, a new birth followed with incredible radiance and blessing. (I wrote about that here.) But I had to go through months of self doubt and mental abuse before I could burn off the darkness and come to clarity. When I finally made my way through the ashes (by no means did I know what it all meant, nor what I was to do next) I had resolved to set myself on a new path. The first insight on that path is chronicled here.

I wrote that first declaration in the beginning of  2006, while quietly vowing to find my authentic voice and to discover the seat of my creative soul, for better or worse. As soon as I set aside time to listen closely to Spirit, things began happening. Unseen forces came to my aid and I found myself going places, meeting people, and experiencing events that I...well, I'd be remiss in saying they were things I hadn't dreamed possible, as I have a huge imagination and play with it fairly often. But I found myself enjoying serendipitous events I had not anticipated.Though at first it was painful and scary, I am so grateful to have jumped off the cliff of the known into the void of the unknown. For ten months I have been free falling, never knowing from one day to the next what will be revealed nor what will be asked of me. I"ll not lie to you, this abyss of the unknown can be a bewildering and foggy place, it's oftentimes so hard to trust beyond what can be seen that I am tempted to give it all up. But the rewards have been profound. And now, something Rich and Strange has taken hold of me. Seems I am to end the year on a Quest.

Those of you who know me or regularly read my writing will know I hear the Voice. By that, you'll know I mean the one in the Field of Dreams cornfield, which I call Intuition. Some months ago, while driving home from an out-of-state conference the Voice said "Quest Down the Spiral." I had no idea what it meant, but it felt personal and urgent, as if I was being ordered on a journey. After probing this message through meditation, I knew the Quest was internal. I was being directed to remove myself from everyday life, to journey somewhere isolated, where I could sit in silence and quest down the spiral of my soul, into it's roots, to find the messages awaiting me there. The only two words that come to mind when trying to define the feeling behind this calling is Initiation and Birth.

I began looking for places to retreat to, somewhere close to our northern Georgia home. Nothing turned up. I looked in other areas of the country where friends or relatives lived, and again, nothing. I was on the verge of exploding with frustration, as a sense of urgency plagued me, yet I could not find the place. There was no intuitive click. Finally, on the phone one night with a girlfriend, I struggled to explain the Quest. "The physical journey is merely symbolic as I will be traveling deep into the channels of my psyche," I said, "yet the need to seek a hermitage away from all that's familiar seems especially important. I don't know why."  She responded with "Oh, I get it! You're being called to spend 40 days and 40 nights in the desert!"

CLICK! She was absolutely right. The analogy fit. Though I do not liken myself to Christ, I can see the significance of deep contemplation in a barren, raw land. Maybe I'd meet my own shadow, unearth my temptations, hang out with the devil in a cantina drinking cactus margaritas and exploring the dance between Light and Dark.

I hung up the phone thinking, "but what if this is not an analogy?" That's the moment I began looking for a place in the Southwest that could accommodate a stay of 40 days. Within 24 hours I had a tiny little adobe in the New Mexico desert waiting for me.

My 40 days and 40 nights begins on All Hallow's Eve, the time when the veil between worlds is thinned and spirits walk the land. As I type this, I am in the adobe staring out at the mesa. These next few days are dedicated to preparing myself for the Quest, bathing in wind and fire, sage and sand. If I am lucky the spirits of this land, the Ancestors, the Ones Who Know, will reach out a thin wisp of an arm and pluck my psyche from this nest. They'll carry me into the dark. If I am lucky I'll pass through the Duirwaigh to discover El Duende--the wind behind the trees, the invisible shaking that moves all things. If I am lucky...I may learn the truth behind Clarissa Pinkola Estes' poem...

IF YOU ARE LUCKY
Clarissa Pinkola Estes

If you are lucky,
you will be stolen and tatooed by the Majores
or the Celts... will put a tiara of fruits or ruffs or fluffs or romany ribbons or candles around you
teach you the dances, teach you the songs
the old women will take you in the back room of the kitchen
on the old porch with the concrete floor
and they'll talk and laugh about their first time
"I bled so much, who would think a  little thing like that will bleed so much?"
and they'll comb their fingers through your hair
your eyes will tear as a great curved upholstery needle
tears through your flesh making the sound like tearing a piece of paper in two
"I bled so much when they pierced my ears who would think a little thing like that
would bleed so much."
And through your eyes tearing and an intense pain behind the bridge of your nose
in the midst of all that
lacy gold earrings will be pushed through the purple holes
dripping that watery cristo pierced with the sword blood.
They'll say to you "we used to do this with a thorn doused in tequila
and held to the flame."
They'll whisper words into pale colored tissue papers
and twist them shut as though they are candy.
And these they will give to you and you will pop them into your mouth
and you will chew them and swallow them one after another
until you have swallowed all fifteen of their wishes for you--
all fifteen wishes for your future life as a human being.
They'll sing into your ears and write signs of stars and sun into your palms
with charcoal from the fire.
If you are lucky, and this happens to you,
and they tell you the old stories...
If someone comes some night and whispers into your ears--
then you will learn how to look forward to meeting the stranger on the road
you will look forward to learning to catch the dream, the tail of it,
the wisp of smoke in the morning
...you'll  know how to seek the telling vapors of the candle...

If you're lucky, an arm is going to reach out and seize you
and take you down a long alley into a small door
behind which are old people who are smoking black cigarettes
and who have dark teeth and they are going to teach you
how to find the path
through the bitter
and the sweet.

****
If I am lucky, I will see you behind the door.

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning is a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness
Some momentary awareness comes
As an unexpected visitor.

Welcome, and entertain them all!
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows
Who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture.

Still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice
Go to the door laughing
And invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes
For each has been sent
As a guide from beyond.
                         ~Rumi

Saturday morning I was not laughing. I was in Charleston, South Carolina to hear Sue Monk Kidd speak on the craft of Writing with Soul. At 8 a.m. my unexpected visitor arrived by cell phone. It rang  loudly, waking me from a fitful dream. I answered to a tear stained voice telling me that Doobey, our beloved dachshund dog-child, had passed away. She was only six years old.

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning is a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness
Some momentary awareness comes
As an unexpected visitor.

After only 15 hours in Charleston, I packed my black canvas bag in the rented dodge and turned toward Atlanta. How could this have happened? Doobey was a rescue dog, a faithful companion who loved lap perching, blanket snuggling and riding with the windows down. She was healthy--never had so much as indigestion in six years. I didn't get to say goodbye. Did she suffer? Was it peaceful? How could liver disease take her so quickly? My mind was pressed heavy with questions, my heart sinking with the weight of the void. I sped down the interstate, trees and wildflowers all a blur, needing to be with my family, to rejoin the pack as we mourned the passing of one of our own. 

Welcome, and entertain them all!
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows
Who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture.

Three hours into the drive home I needed coffee. My eyes and heart were drooping so I exited the highway in search of java. At the off-ramp intersection I looked to the left and to the right, wondering which direction would be more likely to yield an awakening elixir. As I gazed at the red light I noticed there, in front of me glowing like a green halo, was a Starbucks sign.(And why not? They are taking over the world, ya know.) As I pulled into the parking lot there were no spaces available, forcing me to park across the lot at a hotel.  A few minutes later, ice vanilla latte in hand, I crossed the parking lot toward my rented dodge to resume the journey home. Until...

I heard their voices before I could see them. A throng of voices--no. More than a throng. A bombastic hallelujah congregation--a Tabernacle Choir--of voices erupted into the air. I actually looked up. And around. Where was this coming from? It was all I could do to follow the sound. Every hair on my body stood up in holy reverence and beckoned me forward. It was coming from the lobby of the the hotel. What on earth...? I walked through the doors to see thirty or forty dark skinned, beautifully shining (beaming, actually) faces singing "Keep on Making a Way." You wanna talk rapture? This was it, for me. I stood there, transfixed. Or perhaps transfigured.

Still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

I put my car keys, cell phone and cafe latte on the lobby's side table in front of a large decorative bowl of potpourri or some such thing, then turned my face back to the choir. The room was not large. 20'x30' max with 9ft ceilings, which made the sound explode, reverberate and then tackle the sternum, the solar plexus, and the diaphragm. It entered my ears and blood stream simultaneously. The tears came effortlessly, before I even realized I was crying. It was the kind of crying motivated by sheer awe. My dog had died and there I was in the middle of Nowhere, Georgia, in the presence of Spirit. The side table, my alter. The choir, my angels. The song, my benediction.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice
Go to the door laughing
And invite them in.

Five paces behind me was bright sun beating on black asphalt, a few smokers sitting under the green umbrellas of Starbucks, traffic. Five paces in front of me: Glory. With a shudder I turned to look at the marquis of the hotel to get my bearings, to make sure it was all real. The Comfort Inn. I felt a disorienting moment of wooziness as I wondered if it was all real and reached out to steady myself on the side table. That's when Doobey reached out her wet nose to nuzzle my hand. I looked down to see it was only my ice latte melting, condensation dripping from the plastic cup onto my hand. I giggled through the tears and reached for my latte. That's when I noticed the sign. The potpourri bowl I had stacked my keys, phone and latte against was not a potpourri bowl at all. It was full of yellow, orange and green dog biscuits, with a sign that read "We at Comfort Inn welcome you and your dog. Your stay with us is a treat, so enjoy one with us."

Be grateful for whoever comes
For each has been sent
As a guide from beyond.

I grabbed a cookie and noticed it was in the shape of a hound. Short legs, squatty feet, long muzzle and upturned tail like Doobey. I clutched it to my heart and sank to the floor. I sobbed. And laughed. And sobbed again--all to the soundtrack of southern soul-piercing praise. An unusual eulogy: I'd come to Starbucks and found Comfort. I just needed refreshment and got Refreshed. I needed to stay awake, and found Awakening. An hour later the rehearsal was ending and by then the tears and laughter had passed into a trance-like breathing, a calm witness to the moment. When the last song ended, I grabbed my things, settled into the dodge and returned to I-20 as the sun was dipping low and red on the horizon. I placed the dog cookie on the seat for Doobey and rolled down the windows  so we could feel the wind in our hair. We drove the last miles home, together.

Doobey Girl
Turtle Doo
Xena Doo-Warrior Princess
We Miss You
And through the tears
We go to the door
Laughing
September 16, 2006

I admit it. I struggle. Often. There are days when it's difficult to get one positive thought to spring from my lips and I would not even want to see the dark, swirling nest of thoughts in my brain. There are mornings I bound out of bed eager to face the day's challenges and blessings. Then there are the  mornings I want to dump my bowl of Lucky Charms on the mailman's head or spit fruit loops at my chihuahuas for reasons even I can't fathom.

As I struggle to weave my intentions for Duirwaigh and Message from the Muse as two organizations with the same hope--that of helping people realize their dreams and remember their own magic-- I worry that my efforts aren't enough. I wonder what more I can do. How can I Open the Door of Possibility so that it stays open for myself? For others?

Typically these are constructive questions leading me into the fertile land of new ideas. But sometimes they're Deconstructing Angi questions, as fear takes control and I panic with a vision of myself, lying on my deathbed, my Life's Purpose undissolved in my mouth.

Thank the heavens for Angels. I opened an email from one this morning, alerting me to a new comment left on our blog:

"Havingbeen given extraordinary talents and having failed to use them becausesomething'more important' claimed my time and energy I feel as if Ihave discovered a true source of MAGIC in your site. My life is at acrossroads and it is time to either exorcise the demons of'restraint'and 'duty' and bravely go where few middle-aged women chooseto go or give up and just commence a mental decline into old-age. Thereare many days when I feel as though I am thrashing dangerously close todrowning in the mundane as my spirit struggles to gain the courage tofree itself and take wing, both physically, by trusting that I canindeed take care of myself, and creatively, to silence the doubts andcriticisms that creative time is not wasted time because there are morepressing things to be done. Your site, discovered by accident, hasproved to be both restorative and inspirational and I find myselfre-reading messages from the 'Muse' to strengthen my resolve to 'stepout on my own'. Thank you for your gifts and courage...I intend toborrow from them on a regular basis!"

I cannot tell you just how timely this message was, and it speaks volumes about our commonality. Whether it's the big First Step, or the thousand little ones that come after it, we're all attempting to maintain the courage to boldly move in the direction of our dreams while braving the mundane. I applaud you! I support you! When you're feeling weak, know I'm standing in the gap for you. Picture me cheering you on while I hold the duir open. And when I am low, you better haunch your shoulders forward and brace yourself because I want a piggy back ride!

Yesterday I was sitting with a friend who said to me "It's worth considering taking Duirwaigh into the Children's market. There's a good place for your message and an audience unvarnished enough to receive it with purity." I turned to her and said I'd always had an intense affinity for children's books and films, but that my main interest was in helping adults REMEMBER their child-wonder and own it, fully, as adults.  My passion for lost wanderers just came blurting out: "Once adults can become awakened to that state again, they are in such a great position to teach their children. Others have a heart to go right to the children. But I am drawn to the heart of the child inside the adult. I've never seen a group of children more neglected."

To illustrate my point: A woman called into the gallery a few days ago to buy a dozen copies of our film "A Knock at the Door." She told me she watched it every day and often finds herself crying. Her two children, ages three and five, wonder at her reaction to the film. They love it, but turn to her damp face and say, "Mommy, why are you crying? This movie is happy!"

I didn't comment while on the phone, but I know why she's crying. And I know why her children aren't. While watching the film she remembers the magic, that special inhale of awe we shared on a daily basis as children. It was as natural to her as it is now to her children. She's traveled far from that land of wonder, while her children are still in it. She watches the film and remembers her own connection to the mysterious magical interior places. They beckon her to revisit, which inspires tears of memory and hope, both. A longing to return.

This is my intention for Duirwaigh and for Message from the Muse: to issue the Call. You know the magic places. You wandered there freely before joining this realm of adulthood. My role is to help you remember. And to hold the mirror, because all the beauty you see in the realms of the Fantastic is only a reflection of what lives inside you, inside us.

While most days I am able to honor and hold this intention, there are those other days. *Ahem* And then you write to me, holding the mirror up for me. I am caught in the AHA moment and am stunned by what I see in the reflection. Thank you for affirming that we're on this path together, the threads of our lives inextricably wound together whether we feel it or not at any given moment. I NEED YOUR feedback, hopes, questions, struggles and insights because they help strengthen my resolve and I hope the content on these sites helps to strengthen yours.

As Winston Churchill said "If you're going through hell, keep going." This message is for me. It's for you. Hell is just a quick stop over. We are going other places--all those rich, fertile, magical interior places. We're going there, together.

If you're blessed by any of these musings, please pay it forward. PASS IT ON! Tell your friends, your family. Anyone. Everyone. We can create a blanket of comfort to calm and restore the tired soul.

May our threads be brightly woven on the Weaver's loom. I'll see you on the tapestry!

I just returned from a business trip to Seattle and while there I visited a friend on Whidbey Island. She calls me Cookie and I must say, visiting her is like eating in a well-loved Chinese restaurant: the food is great, the lighting low, cutlery is optional and I walk away feeling full and clutching a fortune. This time, the fortune in my cookie read:

"Always settle for More"

She whispered this into my ear as we hugged goodbye. And it got me to thinking. Where and how have I settled for less instead of more? As I gaze at my life through this lens, I realize just how sedating routine can be. We we're young, we determine who we are and what we believe, then set down roots in an attempt to gain solidity, security. We call this 'settling down' but many of us never experience settling up. Roots were made for one thing: growth.  And as we settle down, it's quite important to continue to reach, to stretch skyward so that the tree of our life can breathe, blossom and bear fruit.

So I am driving with the top down throughout the Washington countryside thinking about More. What MORE can I settle for?

Here's my so-far list:

More brilliant, flawed friends who accept my brilliant flawedness
More play threads in my work tapestry
More rides in convertibles, especially red ones
More deep listening
More laughter with a side of snorting or hiccups
More shit-turned-fertlizer (or more lemonade, less sour puss lemons)
More curiosity replacing judgement
More intentional stillness
More coloring books colored with scratch and sniff crayons (I want Chocolate, Asiago Cheese Bread and Johnny Depp crayons in my box)
More profit while playing
More custom made days and self indulgent vacations
More time alone to consider my magnificence and to appreciate yours
More Silly Putty
More questions with no answers that take me into the Mystery
More openess to abundance
More self defined healthiness
More candied walnuts
More wings where there were wounds
More truth
More stories
More authenticity
More More

When my grandmother Marie tasted something particularly delicious, she'd sigh and say "Oh, this is More-ish." And if there is one thing I am certain of, it's this: I want to grow the tree of my life in such a way as to have the fruit of it taste More-ish. I want to taste what Life offers me, swallow what nourishes me, and grow from all of it. I want to show up to Life's table with grace and excitement and say "What Now?", "What Next?",  "What More?"

What you think on, grows. So what More can you think?

I ask you.
***************************************************************
(Thanks, Kate, for the Fortune.)

I finally got around to reading The Time Traveler’s Wife this past week. It’s been sitting on my bookshelf for well over a year and I’ve been anxious to read it but absorbed in non-fiction. Last weekend I finally tucked into the book and promptly found myself time traveling over the next few days—as in, where did the time go? I literally could not put the book down except for the brief visits to bathroom and kitchen, and the occasional jaunt into the realms of business when Duirwaigh needed me.

If you have not read the book, don’t worry. I won’t spoil it for you. But I will tell you one of the opening scenes features a middle age man traveling back in time to visit himself at the age of five. This is not a flash back, but a literal visit where one character exists in the same room at two different ages. The next scene features him visiting his wife when she was only six years old. Needless to say, this touched and thrilled me, as I contemplated meeting my self at age five. What would I say to her? How would I regard her?

As I laid in bed reading these scenes and contemplating what I might have to say to mini-me or what exchange I might have with a young version of boyfriend Silas, I could not help traveling further along in time. Suddenly I was standing at the door of my bedroom, age 84, looking at my 37-year-old self reading the Time Traveler’s Wife by night light, under a red velvet duvet. (A red duvet, I might add, buried under 17 layers of dog hair.)

The sensation of being a much older version of myself made me view the room, the bed, the entire scene—including the dog hair—with new eyes. Suddenly I loved the lamp beside the bed that only sometimes works and wobbles when I so much as look at it the wrong way. I loved the nightstand with six bottles of half-drunk water and fourteen Hershey’s kisses rappers on it. I snuggled deeply into Isabella’s fur (my Chihuahua who insists on sleeping by my head) and truly inhaled her. She will not be alive when I am 84. Nor will Tinkerbell, (my other Chihuahua) who sleeps between my knees each night. She makes me hot by midnight and I am constantly doing a horizontal version of ‘The Hokey Pokey’ to maneuver into a comfortable sleeping position. But my 84-year-old self observed me in bed with those two love buckets and thought ‘Lucky girl.’ And then there’s Silas. I turned over in bed to see him sound asleep, his long dark hair splayed over our blood red sheets. He is a handsome devil, one I adore and take for granted every day. As if there will always be another day, every day.

My eyes welled with tears, for I could feel my 84 year old self remembering this moment in all it’s ordinariness and wanting it back, even just for five minutes. I laid the book down on my chest and absorbed the room deeply. I kissed Isabelle and reached under the covers to pet Tinky. I promptly woke Silas to proclaim my undying love for him and then I set about mentally kissing and hugging everything in my room: the nightstand, the lamp, the red pillows, the undies, sandals and t-shirts strewn across the floor, each and every one of the renegade dog hairs—all the clumsy, disorderly proof that I was here, that I loved and was loved, that I shared joy and sorrow and hope and breath.

And so I ask you? What practical magic lurks in your day? What exceptional moment hides in your routine?

If you could meet your self at age five, what would you say? Do? If you could meet your self at any age, what advice or comfort would you share? And finally, if you are lucky enough to live to be 84, what moment ARE YOU NOW LIVING that your 84 year old self would counsel you to embrace? Where would she tell you to look harder, listen deeper, embrace longer?

What gifts lay in your lap –right now—unopened? Ask the question, then wait for the Time Traveler to show up. She’ll tell you.

I have recently begun participating in a group called Sunday Scribblers. Each week a new topic is posted and the scribblers busily find something to say, in hopes that each exercise will prompt fresh, energetic writing.

This week's prompt is 'Thief!' While I struggled to recall a time when I was robbed or when I actually did the robbing myself (like the time when I was nine years old and stole a package of Bubble Yum bubble gum from the Pantry Pride in Orlando, Florida only to confess moments later to my mother because I did not want to chew gum in hell with Satan...) I found something else entirely wanted to come onto the page.

Nonsense seems to be the name of the game these days. So here's my salute to Lewis Carroll, and the wonderland in every artist.
*    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *

Who Stole the Tarts?

The Prince of Hearts
stole the tarts
or was it the Mad Hatter?

He was last seen
having tea
and growing slightly fatter

Said the March Hare
"How can you care?"
"Does it really matter?"

Aye, it's the Queen~
oh how she screams
o'er the empty platter:

"Off with his head!
I'll see him dead!
I"ll leave his soul in tatters!"

At the queen's decree
her court did flee
you should have seen them scatter

But Alice knew
what she must do
she grabbed a bowl and batter

With kitchen smarts
she baked new tarts
and finished with a clatter

Into the palace
crept our Alice
with a pitter and a patter

Called the queens name
took great aim
and lobbed the tarts right at'her

The queen went down
her royal gown
bedecked with jam and splatter

Alice swore:
"Your rant's a bore!"
"Wonderland's a shatter!"

A chastened core
her ego sore
the queen climbed her royal ladder

"I forgive the prince!
and with Nonsense,
a pardon for the Hatter!!"

And then they played
hedgehog croquet
settling the matter

I tell this tale
so you won't fail
when Ego starts to blather

When Fear creeps out
and causes Doubt
to make your Will go flatter

Stake your claim,
then take brave aim
and watch the villains scatter

When it comes to Arts
we all steal tarts!
thus ends my wonder-chatter

We're only growing Madder!
Love,
The Cheshire Catter

(©Angi Sullins. Mad Hatter illustration ©Angel Dominguez. Check out Angel's Alice book on Amazon.com for the best Wonderland illustrations ever!)