Those of you who’ve been reading my writing for a while may have noticed that I haven’t written in about 3 weeks.
I value consistency and a commitment, not only to my readers, but also to myself. For the past year, having a weekly commitment to communicating on Sundays through my newsletter and blog has served me well. It’s kept me steady and continuously engaging with my creative spirit, rather than succumbing to procrastination and self-sabotage (can you relate?)
And yet, I’ve stopped writing. It’s not that I’ve lost my passion, or that I’ve stopped creating. Instead, I find myself in an intense summer, a summer needing a different kind of commitment, and a summer with much less free time.
It’s become the summer to rewild myself.
To learn a sense of timing, pacing, and acceptance. Patience!
To be busy, to be tired, to be humble and to be home in my northern Canadian hometown.
What this means for you is that I won’t be writing on a weekly basis, at least, not until September, when I’m back in a routine down on Vancouver Island.
However, I do promise, I’ll write this summer. But only when I have good stories and the energy and time to share them well.
John O’Donohoe wrote:
Awaken your spirit to adventure
Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk
Soon you will be home in a new rhythm
For your soul senses the world that awaits you
I’m learning to find ease in risk, humbleness in learning, and an openness to accepting myself exactly as I am, regardless of whether that makes any sense to anyone else.
Here’s a little about what I’ve been up to in the past three weeks:
2,955 kilometres.
And finally I am in my beloved Whitehorse home for 3 months.
Things I learned driving north…
Sunglasses make a huge difference. Why did it take so long to figure this out?
So does cruise control, exceedingly healthy food, stopping for runs in strange towns in the middle of the day, and the exquisite Liard Hotsprings.
It takes 3 hours to travel 100 km between Vancouver and Chilliwack.
Vehicles really burn when they catch fire.
Such as an SUV on the side of the road, flames rising like an inferno above it, firetrucks screaming down the opposite side of the highway to extinguish it. I had a moment of fear that it would explode as I drove past, but here I am. Maybe in a parallel universe those were my last moments.
My body doesn’t like sitting for that long. My left shoulder, waist and right ankle still hurt.
I had time to work on unraveling deep internal colonial bigotries and learning to unlearn all the sexism and devaluing of the feminine. I feel different. In a really good way. I had a lot of time to think.
I found two teachers, via talks on CD that I have avoided listening to for, ooohhhhh, five or so years.
Resistance runs deep.
Pema Chodron, Hugh Milne, I love your voices, and your teachings. But I won’t abandon you Clarissa Pinkola Estes, I still need to master the art of running with the wolves.
And now, I am simultaneously filling these roles: carpenter’s apprentice, Hellerwork Structural Integration practitioner, workshop instructor and demonstrating visual & dance artist. I want to be a bartender too. We’ll see.
I’ve become enchanted with the tools I’m learning to use as I renovate a basement suite – right now the sledgehammer and crowbar are the ones I love most. I may write love letters about them, you’re now forewarned!
It’s perhaps a case of fractured consciousness and crazy making yet, I feel alive and whole.
I love the Yukon. I love the midnight sun. I’m so happy to be here.
If you’re in the Yukon reading this, please do come and see my Devotional Dance Paintings at Whitehorse Nuit Blanche – Saturday June 20th, 7pm to 7am – art and food and creations, all night, all free.
Are you in a similar state of transition? I’m so curious. I’ve been hearing a lot of people choosing to take a pause in their regular activities and engage more fully in self-acceptance and finding ease.
I’d love to hear your stories too.
Janelle
ps – I’m also working on making my Personal Mythmaking course into an online e-course. I think it’ll translate well, and I know a few of you have asked for that. I aim to imbue beauty and magic into the creative transformative processes we all long for, and offer it up.
Are you interested in testing it out first, at a deep discount? Please let me know!
pps – that beautiful photo of me dancing? Taken by artist Rosemary Scanlon.
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