Finding Wonders Within
Dear Fellow Dreamer,
As I sat down to write this letter to you, I spontaneously picked up a Tarot deck and drew The Moon. From the Major Arcana, it’s a potent card, and one with many meanings. The Moon can signal a time of being in the dark of the unknown—a time to pay close attention to intuition, and to dreams. Since I turn to cards frequently in the spirit of creative play, not superstition, and have decks of many kinds, I know each card holds gifts. Here’s a gift The Moon gave me: “Depend on faith, intuition and benevolent forces to lead you safely home.”
Hold that thought.
While the moon in the photograph above is waxing, like the one we’re experiencing now in all its shiny-crescent newness, the moon pictured below, on the card I drew, is in the waning position. Just how exactly that relates to today’s newsletter will become clear.
A couple of weeks ago, I sent you a letter on The Gifts of Not Knowing. And I suppose, now that we’ve fully entered the month of September—a month so often associated with beginnings—I’m revisiting the idea of being in the unknown, only this time from a very different point in the calendar. I know the high expectations we can place on ourselves now, when we’re meant to be fresh like the crisp, bright air, and eager like schoolchildren donning hoodies and size-bigger shoes.
But what if, despite all the burgeoning initiatives—new courses, classes, projects, networking schedules, reading series, meeting series, and the rest of it—you feel a little bewildered or even burdened by it all? Unclear? Unenthused, yet wanting (or perhaps feeling forced) to rise to the occasion?
I confess, I’ve had a recent brush with that state of mind.
While for some of us, the transition from one season to the next can be uplifting, for others, it can bring a sense of diminished clarity and focus. Maybe it’s harder to sleep. Or harder to “produce,” as the earth energies wind down. (This fuzzy thinking can happen in the spring too, with too much pressure to “bloom.”) What if, what you thought you’d love to be doing has shifted? Enter: confusion. From an Ayurvedic perspective, in the northern hemisphere we’re completing the pitta season of high energy and approaching vata—the season of winds, when we can feel blown off course yet expected to be on target.
Maybe some of us arrive there ahead of schedule.
The good news is that no matter how you and I are feeling right now, whether we’re thriving or out of sorts, there are things we can do to positively affect our own internal seasons and weather systems. Our essential states of being and creativity.
For a while, I’ve been thinking about how best to create additional value by means of my page on Substack, Awakening Wonder. Specifically, how to provide a little extra for those who kindly pay to support my work. I’ll come back to that.
But first, I want to tell you about last weekend—an experience I had that helped me to clarify the direction I’m taking with my new offerings. Whether or not you choose to upgrade your subscription (and of course, I hope you do), I want to give you several steps that you can take in order to finish 2024 in ways that are expansive, joyful, and fulfilling. My wish is that, as we enter this waning cycle of the year, you and I will continue to nurture our own evergreen edge of becoming. If Awakening Wonder helps, I’m glad.
Step 1: Rest, Connect, Receive
Last weekend, I let go of creating and simply relaxed in my faith that rest is where all inspired creativity begins. We do our best work when we allow ourselves to slow down and become receivers: listening to nature and to those we choose to turn to, yes; and most importantly, listening to ourselves. The wellspring of our own answers is here inside us—that fresh water of inner knowing—when we give ourselves opportunities to let go and trust.
Human connections can be so valuable in the process of finding wonders within. I believe such connections are essential to creativity, and that the most beautiful creations require contact with others and their gifts.
So, last Saturday, I simply revisited some of my favourite writers on this new-to-me platform, Substack, where I’m finding a community of creative kin. I read other writers’ posts and listened to other writers’ videos and simply allowed myself to be on the receiving end of those creators’ messages. For decades, I’ve lived by Julia Cameron’s adage, “Bless what you love”—respecting how important it is to give in the areas closest to our hearts. For me, one of those areas encompasses beautiful writing, writers, and books. With that in mind, I set out with the intention to support other writers and their work and (grateful that I could do this) purchased several books from a few of the many authors whose work inspires me.
Here are two, Kokoro and Chasing Fog:
I also purchased another full-year subscription. And I socialized, responding to other writers’ newsletters and posts in Notes (the Substack equivalent of social media). It was fun to share some of their messages and gorgeous photos. And as I did those things, unattached to outcomes, I realized I was beginning to feel a shift into full-on enthusiasm.
That word has an interesting origin. Often, when I feel or write “enthusiasm,” I think of its Greek root and meaning—to be “possessed by a god, inspired.”
Step 2: Set Yourself Up to Be Inspired
A work I cherish and know to return to is Wayne Dyer’s Inspiration.
Here’s a key idea from Dyer that stays with me:
“I think of the word inspiration as meaning ‘being in-Spirit.’ When we’re in-Spirit, we’re inspired… and when we’re inspired, it’s because we’re back in-Spirit, fully awake to Spirit within us. Being inspired is an experience of joy; our creative juices flow, and we bring exceptionally high energy to our daily life.”
In addition, the epigraph to Dyer’s opening chapter—a statement by the great yogi master Patanjali—always brightens my mood:
“When you are inspired… dormant forces, faculties, and talents become alive, and you discover yourself to be a greater person by far than you ever dreamed yourself to be.”
Regardless of one’s views, religious or otherwise, I think many of us can relate to the notion of there being a spiritual dimension to inspiration. Something expansive and ineffable happens when we experience such a lift—just as it does when we “depend on faith, intuition and benevolent forces to lead us safely home.”
Step 3: Renew, Marvel, Create
For me, on that final holiday weekend of summer, “coming home” took the form of gaining clarity on the talk series I’d love to create for you—one I’m starting this month. It will go out to paid subscribers on Sunday morning, September 29th.
As we enter the final months of 2024, I’m motivated to create a series in service of rest, reflection, and the sense of renewal that can come when we get in touch with the wonders within us. Creating from that place can bring clarity and deep satisfaction, even joy.
I’ve decided to deliver the four talks at the transition points from one month to the next. In these recorded presentations, I hope to offer you nourishment on your creative path. By means of the selected readings I’ll share, as well as visualizations and invitations to reflect in your journal, I also hope to provide opportunities that will spark your own greater clarity, insights, desires, and inspired action steps.
In our mainstream culture, so few rituals exist to put us in touch with soul—whatever that word means to you. It’s my intent that these talks will be experiences to look forward to. A time to cleanse ourselves of the grit that naturally accumulates during a busy month of daily living. To take respite, and retreat in strength. And also, to listen—not only to the things I’ll share, but to your own intuition during the short exercises and reflections.
Whether you’re a fellow writer or artist of any kind, a teacher, a healer, a business owner, a corporate employee, or someone who’d simply love to feel the uplift of greater clarity on a creative project at the end of each month, this new series is meant for you.
We are all creators. We are all intuitive.
I’m calling this new talk series Wonders Within.
Full Circle
After drawing The Moon card from The Enchanted Tarot, I felt an extra surge of delight and checked my calendar. Here are the Sundays when I’ll post my talks for paid subscribers:
- September 29, 2024
- October 27, 2024
- November 29, 2024
- December 29, 2024
All four of the recordings will arrive during the waning phase of the moon. (!) A perfect time for taking it easy and going inward.
These presentations will be intimate. I’ll bring my whole creative self to the series—the writer, teacher, and coach. I’m not recording these informal sessions in the blue office you see in the background of my other videos, but in the deep red “cave” downstairs, a creative heart space in our home, at the table where I sometimes play, sketching with coloured pencils and wrapping gifts.
My intent is to share my gifts in service of yours.
And so, for the price of a coffee and cookie per month—come join me!
As for the overarching topic of each module, I’m following the message of The Moon card and letting myself be in the unknown for a while, trusting intuition. That goes for the talk lengths, too—somewhere between 25 and 50 minutes. Of course, as you engage, you can pause me for as long as you like, taking time to reflect and write.
Later in the year, as we transition to 2025, I’ll plan my next steps and new offerings for paid subscribers. It would be wonderful, eventually, to host live gatherings.
Whether or not you upgrade to paid, please know that I’m glad you’re here. I’m grateful for you.
Next week, look for an excerpt and author reading (and intro) from one of my books, Birdlight: Freeing Your Authentic Creativity.
Happy September!
