Impossible Things

"I asked you to believe in impossible things, and you never once looked at me like I was crazy." ~the OA

In an attempt to retrace our steps, I was startled to see a fork in the road. Do you remember passing a fork in the road? I asked Yolande who stood several meters behind me. The poorly maintained dirt road shot off in 2 paths, a scattering of coconut husks lay at our feet, the jungle of palms thick in every direction.

I glanced over my shoulder. Everything looks the same, she said, voice full of pain. Her knee was giving out, and I'd thoroughly gotten us lost. Somewhere on the quick 15 minute hike between Haad Yuan and Haad Tien, we'd somehow wandered off into the jungle.

Just past noon, hot and humid, lost in the jungle on a Southeast Asian island. Perhaps I should have forewarned my friend that following me to a remote part of the island with intent to hike across the tri-bay could lead to unexpected strangeness. Perhaps I should have some sort of business card made explaining that being within 3 feet of me could cause a rip in space-time.

I pace my bungalow and read my manuscript aloud until I lose my voice. Sinking into the world of imagination until all lines are blurred. I convince myself I should probably get out more. Beach walks. Yoga class. Write night. Weeks go by.

Teresa and I grasped the vines and pulled ourselves over the ridge. Flip flops and sundresses, scratched knees and dirt crusted hands. We must have looked like we crawled out of a portal from elsewhere, Alice in Wonderland style. An untouched and pristine scene--turquoise lagoon and gushing waterfall, smoothed rocks and cascading stream. The cool, clear water engulfed our ankles. From one reality into another.

I lie in my hammock and binge watch all my favorite Gigi Young videos. To imagine is to be a magician, she says. To use the power of imagination is a way to connect to higher realms. Connect and pull them to earth.

Where do my characters come from? Where do these stories exist? I close my eyes and travel there. I pull stories from other places and bring them here. Scene by scene, I wield magic, I create, I bring impossible things to life. It is an incredibly slow, and at times, tedious process--crawling back over the same terrain again and again in search of all the missing pieces, never knowing for sure if anyone will see the same story I do.

Will these books ever see the light of day outside of those I choose to share them with? Who knows. And honestly, it's best I don't think about it too hard. What matters is that I show up and do my part.

Faith that we took the correct path, Yolande and I did finally find our way to Haad Tien. We stopped by the Tea Temple at the Sanctuary to write and rest before heading on to Why Nam--a place you might not believe exists unless you've been there. We ran to the water and swam out to the raft floating in the center of the bay. I can't remember how long we were there or what we talked about, but lying on the raft surrounded by water with our faces to the sun, I imagined impossible things.

It comes up a lot in this blog--the idea of cultivating magic, bending reality, and believing in a world in which anything and everything is possible. It all starts with imagination and bringing the seemingly impossible into the world of possibility. What is your relationship with your imagination? How do you use it to bring magic into your life?

Well friends, after 2 months of immersing myself in imagination and writing, I'm off again for more adventures! Diving into familiar as well as completely new territory, I'm excited to find out what's in store for me over these next 3 months. 

Pinnacle of Existence

I could not, for the life of me, figure out how to capture the scene I saw when I stepped onto the balcony. An endless view of crystal blue ocean, sandy beach, and rocky islands lay beyond the stretch of palms and huts below me. I'd seen scenes like this before. Why was I struggling to make sense of this one?

I had spent the past hour in the jungle blindfolded--erratically breathing, screaming, and jumping around--so maybe, on the other side of this madness, what I saw couldn't be captured. Sarah, collector of surreal images and strange experiences. Perhaps this is what my life has accumulated to. Perhaps I have finally arrived at some sort of singularity where everything breaks down to uncapturable images and moments. There could be worse existences.

Since first coming to this small, tropical island in the Gulf of Thailand, I told myself I'd return to stay longer than a week or two. And now 4 visits and 3 years later, I'm here to stay a while longer. I have a small hut on a hillside in the jungle not far from the beach--where dinosaur sized plants and bugs overtake everything, where the tropical heat surges up from the earth and the gentle sea breeze feel like magic.

Settling in. Letting go. One foot in front of the other until I collapse in my hammock each evening. Warm nights. Starry skies. The vibrant greens and blues. It's too easy to un-ground and forget about everything. I tether myself with daily practices and press my feet into the sandy earth. Still so much to explore here and mysteries to uncover. Breath. Trust. Be.

Not too many nights ago a fierce and intense storm blew through. Thunder and lightning and crashing waves. The normally calm Gulf now alive with electric energy. The power went out at the seaside cafe where I was writing, and for a moment, I was engulfed in darkness and the sound of nature, an unstoppable force. And I thought: this is where I belong--here and now, in this time and place. There is no where else I want to be. There is no where else I'm meant to be.

Tropical paradise where creativity flows and I find everything I need. It feels like I've reached some sort of pinnacle of existence, but I know that it's not. Only fleeting moments that rise and fall. When I left the US January 2016, I told myself I would ride this wave as long as I could. There seems to be no end in sight. When it's time to stop for a bit, I stop. When it's time to move on again, I do. I feel guided in all my decisions. There is no wrong way to exist or live or be.

How do you ground into those high moments where everything becomes surreal and inexplicable? How do you ride the waves of your life?

Path of the Sacred

From the corner of my eye, I saw her raise her hand apprehensively. Can I...? I'm sorry. Her voice trailed off, and she lowered her head. Go on. He nodded in her direction. Can I ask about your religion? A silence spread over the Taos Pueblo. We all held our breath and leaned in.

He smiled and shook his head. I absolutely cannot. It's the one thing I can't talk about. He paused. You see, when something is shared freely and then in turn is freely shared again, it becomes diluted. It becomes...something else. Hold what is sacred close to your heart so it stays potent. He pointed up, piercing the crisp, cool air. It keeps the stars moving across the sky. 

Out beyond Socorro and Magdalena on the plains of San Agustin, I waited along the eastern edge of the VLA property and watched the night slowly devour the day until I could see nothing but the Milky Way arched over my head. I'd once written in an old story that you can't really comprehend how many stars there really are until you see a Wyoming sky on a clear, moonless night. I could say the same about the sky here in the high desert of New Mexico. The light of the stars engulfing the darkness.

In these wide open spaces I can feel my soul expand and touch the stars. So far, yet so close. So vast, yet so sacred. Perhaps the most sacred things can never be shared because they are inexplicable. So we weave words and make art and music, but how close does it get to the raw experience?

I stood in the backyard of my grandfather's house and closed my eyes. In an instant, all the images and sensations transported me in time--the taste of concord grapes directly off the grapevine, chasing fireflies around the yard on warm, sticky evenings, the brilliant yellow of the giant sunflowers lining the garden, the cool spray from the water sprinkler, the gentle sway of the tree swing. When I opened my eyes again, the yard was barren--no grapevine, no fireflies, no sunflowers, no water sprinkler, no tree swing. Just me on a frigid winter day in Ohio.

Jen and I walked the Wilder Trail along the surreal, cliff-edged coast that separates Santa Cruz proper from Davenport. We talked about the manifestation meetups we use to hold. Four of us would meet every 3 weeks and meditate and share our insights about the world unseen and how to work with it and play with it. The knowledge shared between us was kept sacred and potent. It was one of my last lessons before I left for India.

The inexplicable seems to slip into stories, the ones I read and write and watch--once removed because the sacred always finds a way to stay protected. And in this way, it's safely shared and received by those who it is meant for. I'd like to think it's something akin to telepathy.

With knowledge and information overload at our finger tips, it's easy to question if anything is sacred anymore. Yet everything is if you shift your perspective. What you are meant to know and understand in this life will find you. It will find you in dreams and books and conversations with friends and strangers. It will find you through social media and meditation. The Universe is far more mysterious than we realize. Out there is never as far as it seems. Ask questions often. Someone, somewhere will receive the answer.

What is your relationship with the sacred and the inexplicable? Do you hold it close to your heart? Or freely share knowledge? Do you believe the sacred protects itself and finds its way to those it's meant for regardless? I'd love to hear your thoughts! 

The Quiet Between

Mid-January and I'm driving into the northern mountains of Thailand. Dawn and I stop at the peak and look out over the ridge into the expanse of dull, green jungle. A thin haze has clouded the once vibrant scene. I drive on and slip back into some kind of stable life in Chiang Mai that soon begins to resemble the clouded scene from the mountain. The air becomes thick and my mind foggy. I stare at the ceiling and have imaginary conversations with my characters and call it writing.

I blink and it's February. The evening grows chilly and the sun moves quickly. A few of us attempt to start a fire which proves to be more of a challenge than it should be. After all the wasted kindling and exploding bamboo, someone gets it going. It's our first night manning the Kosmic Nest--a psy-care, safe space at the Jai Thep Festival. My second year volunteering.

My eyes linger in the night sky. I haven't seen stars in months and don't want to look away, ever. I stay up late into the night drinking Chai and reading Tarot for anyone who wanders into the nest. Everyone more or less asks the same question. I'm unsure if it was wise to have put myself in this position. But here I am, ever curious, ever pushing boundaries.

It's amazing the things people will open up about when they think you hold the key to everything they want to know. I attempt to explain the logic of Tarot to the skeptics. They look at me as though I've just tried to convince them into believing in their own intuitive power.

I blink again, and it's mid-February on a Sunday afternoon. I've ended up in a small tucked away ashram dancing with some Hare Krishnas. Sometimes following ones curiosity requires a bit of vulnerability and a serious energy shift. Sometimes it leads to Hare Krishnas. Sometimes it leads to unexpected friendship and ever more curious portals and questions.

Late February. Alia and I go for coffee and she asks me about my novels. I talk about astrophotography and nesting boxes, family secrets, and mysticism. I talk a lot about structure. It's like I'm analyzing books that already exist in the world. And then I remember--they don't. And it's up to me to make sure they become fully realized things. What an incredible yet terrifying task I've been given.

It's already March and in less than a week I'll be back in the US. And then back in Chiang Mai. And then relocating my home base. A series of and then and then and then. But it's the moments of quiet between that drive the questions and adventures and writing. A sacred silence that I hold close yet permeates everything.

What is it that drives your inner curiosity and questions into the manifest world?

T-minus 5 days until I'm off again. And none too soon. Burning season is underway here in Chiang Mai, and all the smog and heat are getting trapped in the city. So I'm gonna go find some clear, starry skies and snow to play in! 

Wisdom From the Trenches of 2018

"Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right." ~Grateful Dead

January: Loss. An extraordinary, but complicated friendship ended. Our soul contract had ended years prior, and maybe I should have seen it coming--we've done this for lifetimes. I sent out a prayer of gratitude and burned the last of the damiana. I also lost my bank card and a bit of my sanity. But such is life.

February: Excess. Between two jobs, teaching yoga, tarot classes, writing workshops, and coven gatherings, when do I have time to just be? I will tell you: In the moment. Just be present. Be the eye of your own hurricane.

March: Release. What would happen to my life in Chiang Mai if I quit the job I moved here for? All I know for sure is when a void is created be mindful of what goes into all that empty space.

April: Connect. I landed on Bali with Meno's question lingering in the back of my mind: How will you go about finding that thing the nature of which is totally unknown to you? Through the alchemy and magic of human connection.

May: Allow. What would it be like to move out of the city and into a rustic little hut in the jungle? Step carefully. Ease into this new life and let the ever morphing nature of Chiang Mai fill in all around.

June: Stillness. I've nothing to do most days except sink into the still quietness of this jungle life. This is where intuition strengthens and the journey to other worlds begin.

July: Expansion. In what new ways can I move out of my comfort zone? My soul knows better than I do so I head to Vietnam. Challenging and eye-opening and at times shocking, I adapt and I learn to navigate through this strange new energy.

August: Discover. Epic rides along the coast and through the jungle--the freedom of the open road sparks inspiration and ancient memories. I didn't just discover hidden layers of Vietnam, but a story tucked deep inside of me that began to inch its way out.

September: Integrate. Detox, meditate, integrate, repeat.

October: Alignment. My third birthday on this magic island in the Gulf of Thailand. I'm lured back here each year to reevaluate and realign, to walk the labyrinth and ask more questions. Hammock naps hold the answers to everything.

November: Discipline. Thirty days and 52000 words later I have a very rough draft of a new novel. Discipline is not just mindset. It's also structure and a solid, supportive community of friends who are on the journey too.

December: Healing. Sometimes it takes extreme circumstances to bring me back to point zero. Some times it takes going off grid into the heart of Laos and falling off a motorbike to get me there. Lots of rest and recovery. It took three weeks for my body to fully come out of shock--and to finally heal.

I slid into 2019 with ease. I was asleep well before midnight and woke up to a new year. A calm blanket of peace washes over me as I move slow through this first week of January. It is going to be an amazing year of curiosity and creation and, of course, magic.

I dare you to tap into your unlimited potential and work it to your advantage this year. What will you create? What magic will you cultivate? 

The Wild, Wild East

"In all chaos there is a cosmos, in all disorder a secret order." ~Carl Jung

As within, so without.

Somewhere in the northern mountains of Laos between Vang Vieng and Luang Prabang I'm lying on the ground staring up at every woman in the small Hmong village. They all stare and smile and giggle at me like I'm some strange novelty fallen from the sky. Oddly comforting given my position there on the ground, far from anything familiar. Feet from me Hmong rebels walk up and down Route 13, machine guns slung over their shoulders, hard eyes staring down every passerby. I'm hours away from anywhere resembling civilization as I know it. This is the wild, wild east after all--remote and untethered and timeless.

Landlocked and full of dense jungle and rivers and waterfalls, there is an unsettling energy about Laos that is hard to pin down. For two weeks, I moved slow through the breathtakingly, surreal landscape, breathing in the vast, open wild. It was as though I'd fallen off the edge of the earth into the far reaches of this wild east. Hmong in Laos, I discovered, means Free, and it is this raw freedom that feels so unbounded and otherworldly.

I fall in love with stories about the unknown--my imagination moving across adventures in distant landscapes, places I've never been--from the stories of Indiana Jones and Firefly, to the ones of Kira Salak and Lawrence Blair. I'm suddenly transported to the here and now, terra incognita, land unknown, on the ground, staring up at the bluest sky. Days ago I'd been staring up at the same sky with the warmth of sun on my skin and the frigid water of the Nam Song around my dangling feet as my inner tube lazily floated down river. Life is but a dream.  

Few roads cut through northern Laos. To experience it you need to walk or take a boat or simply teleport about. This wilderness is protected by nothing but rebels with guns and un-exploded bombs scattered over the country. To wander into the thickness of it, could mean never returning--literal or otherwise. The greenery closing up tight from behind with each step forward, with each step inward. Here be dragons. 

To travel to other realms and worlds, you only need to walk through the opaque clutter of your own thoughts, navigate landmines, and sit in the still, dark, ether until you arrive. Listen, learn, integrate. This is the final frontier. Terra incognita. Here be dragons. 

I crash to Earth and lift myself. I move on. I move slow. On the mend in more ways than one. I will continue to explore this mysterious world--the one inside of me and the one outside of me--and share my stories. The entire Universe is inside each of us--and outside of us. As within, so without.

Inching my way back to the familiar on a two day slow boat up the Mekong River. Misty karst covered hillsides, scattering of villages along the banks, vast silence, wild magic.  Life is but a dream.

As we roll over into 2019, think about how your outer world is reflecting your inner world--and vice versa. Are they in harmony? What do you think would happen to your outer world the further and deeper you explored your inner one? Become explorers of the unknown. Experiment with this and see what begins to shift.

This will be my last post of 2018! I'm looking forward to new adventures in 2019 as I continue to follow this curious path. What visions do you have for 2019? 

As Above, So Below (Some Notes on Soul Alignment)

Erica and I had just sat down to dinner when we saw it. Like a diamond flying through the night big and bright, it pulsed and shot across the black sky. It didn't look real. The best ones never do. The best ones are never the ones I chase.

After dinner we gathered around the bonfire and opened our hearts with cacao and listened to the shamanic beats and sang out ancient sound currents. How can we ever predict where we'll be when we see the next shooting star? How can we ever predict that we will look back on the most insane moments of our lives with such love and gratitude.

Tucked in the jungle between the beach communities of Haad Tien and Why Nam is a labyrinth. There are no choices on this path, only the meandering soul moving steadily toward center and back out again. It's my third time on this island and the third time I've walked this labyrinth.  I am not the past. I am not the future. I am only this ever present eternal moment spread across dimensions and space.

It wasn't until I saw a meteor shower under the dark skies of a 4am mid-western November chill that I knew meteors could explode in a tones of reds and greens as they hit the atmosphere in a bang. Little did I know then that it would be last time I'd see such magic in the sky. Little did I know then the things my soul had planned for me and what I would have to experience in order to finally find that magic again--not just in the sky, but everywhere. As above, so below. 

I hadn't intended to return to Chiang Mai to stay. Since March I've attempted to move away 3 times, but it calls me back again and again like the whispers of fae. Early morning practice, I fold over into bound lotus and press my forehead into the floor. I hear the ocean roaring. I hear the static of space. I see those things I'm meant to see. I understand why.

I've been back from the island two weeks now, and I'm 11 days and 20,000 words deep into a new novel. I'm 3 days into a powerful new morning sadhana. And next week, I will move out of the jungle and back to the city, into a place of my own where I will ground for the winter, where I will cultivate and fine tune my writing life in ways I've simply not before.

There is a season for traveling and exploring and a season for grounding and writing. There is a season for city life and a season for beach and jungle life. There is a season for outer worldly exploration and a season for inner cosmic exploration. To stay in alignment, I need to listen to what season my soul needs.

This lifetime is a gift--to explore the world with curiosity and craft messages from the cosmos into stories, is a life to care for and wield.

Are you in alignment with your soul? Do you listen to what it needs in order to stay aligned? Or do you feel completely disconnected? I would love to hear about your practices and experiences and where you are at. I would love to hear your soul speak.

"Travel light,  live light, spread the light, be the light."
Sending you love and light and magic.
Sat Nam.