-one view from Ruckle Point at dusk, June 2008This is a story about following intuition. Sometimes following intuition feels counterintuitive. It feels like you're being pulled to do the last thing your brain thinks you should be doing. It's not practical you protest. I don't have the money you think. But, in your heart you know that it's what you must do. It's as if someone else has already decided for you. If you're listening, you just do it with a feeling of rightness in your heart.
That's what I did last week. I packed up my tent and my camping supplies and I headed to Ruckle Point on Saltspring Island. I first went there about 18 years ago and I consider that beautiful place my personal refuge; the place I go to get re-energized, to calm down, to clear my head, to allow the softness of the mossy forest and the rhythms of the ocean to soothe me.
Before I left, I contacted the editor of The Driftwood, the community newspaper there. They also publish a magazine five times a year called Aqua. The editor's name also happens to be Gail. I met her last year at an interview in early July. About a month ago, I contacted her again and asked if she needed anyone to do any writing for Aqua. At that time I had no idea that I would be taking a mini retreat to Saltspring in the near future. I'm not sure how I thought I would write stories solely via the phone but it's totally possible, although not preferable, so I just put it out there.
To make a long story shorter, Gail and I met for coffee on Thursday and she said to me, You couldn't write a story today could you? Her reporter had had a fluke accident with a bungey cord as he was loading his kayak onto his car earlier that week. His eye had been injured.
So, that's how I found myself sitting at a computer in the The Driftwood offices writing a story about a guy who was going to be holding a Diksha or "oneness blessing" on July 3. He's written a book called The Cosmic Alarm Clock. He'd been to the "Oneness university" in India a few times and now he's passionate about sharing his experience.
Then, Gail gave me three stories to write for Aqua magazine's September issue. I met a Goldsmith who had won a grant to attend as artist in residence at a small crafts community in Finland. Originally from Vancouver, she's followed her own intuition and has learned what she can about an ancient process called Damascene Inlay.
I followed a former teacher turned orchardist around his Appleluscious orchard. He's the creator of the Saltspring Island Apple Festival now in its 10th year, set for September 28th. And, I sat on a deck with the most spectacular view of Mount Baker at the home of two peace activists from Ojai, California. They had "voted with their feet" and arrived on Saltspring sometime in 2003 because they could not spend one more minute living in the U.S. with George Bush as President surrounded by the ignorance and hatred they were subjected to whenever they peacefully protested the Iraq war. Through a series of events, they now manage/coordinate the Film Festival which showed 70 documentaries last year over a period of 3 days in March coinciding with International Women's Day.
It was a good trip and very timely to meet these people not so much because of what they're doing but because how they came to do it. They're all passionate about what they do as the creators of their own livelihoods. They don't make a lot of money. In fact, at this point in time the Film Festival is a voluntary full-time job and it's true they couldn't even do it if they had not had the money to take a leave from paid work.
I believe meeting these people has a role to play in shaping my thoughts about what I will be doing, if not where I will be living, in the not too distant future.
Intuition is pro-active. You're not following anyone else's breadcrumbs. You're trying to hear your own heart which knows your truths where all the answers you need to hear, reside.
Just listen!