I say the universe got my attention when I hemorrhaged and it did but, in spite of the fact my doctors insisted I take 3 months off, I went back to work in one week. I’d been taken to my knees and I still WENT BACK TO WORK. We human beings have a powerful draw to what we know, even when it no longer serves us, if it ever did. I had a deep understanding my life was off track, my job was killing me and I still went back to work.
All my life I’d accomplished whatever I needed by strength of will but, now, no matter what I did, I wasn’t healing. The reality was my old ways of being had died on March 8th, but I was still fiercely holding on because I didn’t have any idea of what was being birthed, or even that something was. I felt lost and confused. I wanted my old life back!
One day my assistant, Piper, came into my office and found me crying, something that just never happened. She knelt down and told me about a tarot card reader she knew, suggesting I call her. I did. In that moment, for the first time in my life, I let go of control. I suspended skepticism. I closed my eyes, took a leap of faith, and stepped into magic. This is where my new life began.
I’d taken one question with me to my appointment: How do I heal? She pulled my cards and nearly gasped, “You’re an artist!” as though it was the most unlikely possibility she could imagine. She asked what my art was and I told her I sang and wrote a little (you see, in order to leave painting behind all those years ago, I’d had to wipe it from my memory). She stared; her eyes boring through me like hot coals. This was not the answer she was seeking. I got very uncomfortable as she looked deeply into me, searching, and finally I remembered. “Oh!” I said, “I used to paint.” She clapped her hands together and pronounced, “That’s it! In order to heal you have to paint!”
I didn’t go back to work. I went home, walked directly to the bookshelf in my living room and pulled out a book Piper had given me the year before. It was The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. I opened it to a passage that read, “… all I knew was how to make these headlong dashes and hurl myself… at the wall… I fell… I bled…” Clearly, I was being guided, so for the second time in one day I took a leap of faith into the unknown that had become my life and, for the first time ever, gave myself over to magic. Within 3 months I’d given a year’s notice to my employer and set about re-learning how to paint.
This artist’s journey is all about faith and trust and a willingness to live in not knowing. We are asked, every day, to hope against hope that our dreams can come true. I think it’s why art is so precious and why we all long to be artists. It’s a journey into the wilds of the soul and it is there for each and every one of us if we are willing to believe even when we can’t see.
My Story Continued…
- High Road Artist: My Story Begins
- My Re-Birthday
- Leap of Faith
- Into the Wilderness
- Of the Land
- The Long Goodbye
- Coming to New Mexico
- Dreams Come True
- The Night I Died: The Whole Story, Part 1
- The Night I Died: The Whole Story, Part 2
More From High Road Artist
High Road Artist Recommends
- The True Meaning of Longing (angkulet)
- Law of Attraction Doesn’t Work (Invisible Heartstrings)
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