Last Sunday I attended an autumn equinox celebration up in the mountains at an outdoor amphitheater outside of Boulder, Colorado. I bring this up because I was married there. Thirty-seven years ago. And I hadn’t been back until that Sunday night. Suddenly, I found myself choked up, hoping to be alone for a few minutes to collect my thoughts.
The back story is that I was only 24, three months pregnant, just starting to show through my $25 garage sale wedding dress, optimistic and scared all at once, overlooking the uncertainty of this monumental decision. And now here I was, standing on the same rocks thirty-seven years later.
It got me thinking: What do you know that you didn’t know the last time you were standing on this natural altar? Have you had an experience like this? Where you are back to a place and oh so different and wiser?
I was glad I didn’t know then how much pain, survival and striving I would have to go through to get here standing on this mountain so grounded 37 years later. It is the pain of being human. The struggle against self-sabotage. That we have to risk, often running away from who we really are. Until we cannot run any longer. And we stop. And we begin to realize our destiny and our calling. Although the marriage didn’t last, Sweet Bird had just begun and is still running stronger than ever these 37 years later. Sure, there will always be regret. But isn’t that how we grow?
So, I thought again, “what do I know now that I didn’t know before?”
That I have learned when you have PURPOSE you have life. A full life. It is that part of you that will not be drawn into despair.
That you must OWN what you have come here to do.
That ART is a way back to yourself.
That your work will become your SPIRITUAL navigation system.
That I have come from survival dance to SACRED dance. That I am co-creating with the Creator.
That I am proud of meeting crisis with CREATIVITY. Finding fulfillment in the healing through ART.
And for that reason, I wouldn’t trade another day for that younger version of me.
May you always have purpose, intention and love.
Nancy + Team Sweet Bird