I want to share with you today, a moment I had earlier on in this week.
I went out for a run. I live very close to the woods here in North Vancouver. We had an unusually late to start summer here, usually that just means that it is a shorter summer. But this year, it actually really went on until mid October - just a couple short weeks ago, we were still wearing shorts and flip flops!
Finally the weather has hit - we're in an 'atmospheric river of rain', which is a new term, I think, I don't know if that's a climate change thing or what, but I never heard people refer to big rainstorms that way before, but that's what we're calling them now.
And we are in the middle of one right now. It was an adjustment for me, you know, I'd been running in the woods on sunny days and feeling like summer might never end. And then suddenly, here we were this deluge of rain. Still wanted to go for a run. So I went out. And as I got further and further into the woods, the sun came out.
I live in a temperate rainforest. When the sun comes out suddenly after a while of it being very wet and damp and rainy, the mist is spectacular.
And here I was in the middle of these beautiful, huge towering cedars. On the side of a mountain crawling up and down these rocks from my trail run and running along this gorgeous river.
And there's the sun peeking out and mist everywhere. Some of the trees were turning yellow, and the water was rushing on the river beside me. And there I was flying through the trails, over rocks and roots. And I just felt really alive. It was a really beautiful moment in and of itself.
Normally what I do is I cross this bridge, I think it's probably about 100 feet over the river below, but this time I felt this overwhelming invitation to sit down.
But you know, I'm in my run, I want to keep it going. I've got my cardio up, that music is blaring in my ears, I'm having a great time the sun is out, it's shining on my face. It's wet everywhere. It's beautiful. I just kind of want to keep going. But I had this really strong urge to just sit and I happen to be right in the middle of the span of this beautiful bridge over this gorgeous river.
And i know better than to ignore these impulses by now... so I sat down.
Facing the water in one direction, it felt like was kind of coming at me. And if I turned around and face the other way it felt like it was kind of coming out of me leaving me going away from me. And I just sat there and I kind of tuned into the energy of the River as it was coming down the mountain, and felt what it felt like to have all this incredible powerful energy coming, it felt like it was coming right towards the center of my being.
I sat like that for a little while and soaked that in. And then I turned around, and I sat on the other side of the bridge and felt what it felt like to have it all rushing through me and leaving me.
And as I looked down at all of the leaves, and trees, and the rocks, and the broken logs, and the little things spreading up out of crevices, and listening to the birds and watching the water ebb and flow and rush over these rocks, sometimes deep, sometimes shallow, it really struck me...
I had this sort of full body experience of realizing that every single thing that has ever happened since the beginning of time, everything that's happening in this moment, and everything that ever will happen is happening for me. And that applies to you too, to everybody. , That leaf is opening for itself, obviously, but also for you to enjoy, and for the squirrel to eat. Everything that moves through us is in this constant loop, this constant stream of beautiful, never ending always-giving energy.
It was a beautiful moment. I was crying. I sat there on the bridge, and there were suddenly a whole bunch of tourists that had gone for a hike down the woods. And there they are seeing this local girl sitting on the ground with her tears streaming down her cheeks and her in her ear buds in her ears. And I'm sure they wondered what the heck I was thinking?
I didn't care it was it was such a beautiful, radiant moment.
I had that sort of like blissful beautiful feeling you get when you have one of those full body sort of knowing realizations. I really did feel at one with past present future. Everything that was happening in this moment was beautiful.
And then I got up and continued my run.
And then as I started my climb back up the hill to get back home, I started to sort of daydream about and riff about what I had just experienced. What happened next was almost sort of like an aftershock set of realizations.
It dawned on me that the reason that humanity is suffering so much, the reason that we're glitching is because we try to hold back what's trying to move through us, you know, we edit ourselves, we don't want to be weird, we don't want to be the first one to try something new, we don't want to be vulnerable and put on paper or into words or movement, what is really real for us. And so we hold it in, and we try to change its shape, and we try to curate it for the world around us. And then we start to suffer, then we start to feel great pain, because the force of that creative energy in you is like that river and like the seed that opens up.
And when when you try to contain that or shove it down, there's a dysfunction that happens with that. It felt like a really important message to share with you.
You know, you're here for a very specific and important reason that really, really matters. And when you for whatever reason, believe you're not creative, you believe you don't want to be weird, or whatever fear is guiding you -when you do not allow that energy to move through you in a wild and unpredictable way. You cause yourself pain, and you actually cause pain for the rest of the universe around you because we're all waiting for you to share your gift because that's why we're here.
I wanted to share that moment with you. I made you a little reel on Instagram about this.
As I move forward and continue to show up and do this work, I realize that my calling really is in service to the reunion between people and the creativity that lives inside them. I feel so on fire about that purpose. It feels like the most important work we could do on the planet. What's the point in saving the environment? What's the point in saving the planet if we are not able to fully express the gifts that are within us, to truly love each other?
ebcause to me, that's really, that's what we're here for.
Learning how to unlearn the things you learned that made you feel like you shouldn't be creative or couldn't be creative or couldn't let this energy guide your whole entire freakin life. I mean, the intelligence inside of you should be at the helm. This creative intelligence should be in the driver's seat of our lives. And instead, we've parked the rational mind there, and it's just creating all no end of problems for us.
I hope this sparks something wonderful inside of you. And that it reminds you to step a little deeper into this part of you that is wild and unpredictable and unknown, and unstoppable. Because it's going to happen anyway. You might as well jump in the current and see where it takes you, right?
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