Today, as I sat outside reading a book that is three days overdue, I enjoyed the sounds all around me. Mr. Squirrel who is busy choosing acorns for his stash. The sounds of the waterfall from the pool. The birds chirping from the bush nearby. A steady hum of cars driving by at rush hour.

The stillness felt so good. The early fall temps equally as wonderful.

As I read my book, I reflected on the sidelines of my mind how my story has been so similar to the author’s. Experiences of talking to my inner child. Falling into my heart one night upon closing my eyes. A deep recognition of my inner wise woman, my moon maiden and mother. So many experiences I wonder how I would share all of this…and then right behind that wondering, the wondering of … is it even necessary to share?

The one that most speaks to me to share is entering the heart. As, this is where your desires, your connection to all is readily available.

One night, as I began to close my eyes, I suddenly found myself in a room (more like a large-ish closet) full of books. The books were not arranged on shelves like you might find in an organized and proper library, rather, they were in a heap in the middle of the floor!

I wondered, Where am I?

I heard, “Your heart.”

Oooooh, I need to do some MAJOR housekeeping! I became more concerned about the state of affairs in my heart than I was in the actual contents.

Many months later, I returned with more courage to actually look around and see what was available for me there. When I arrived this time, I saw an old-fashioned writing desk sitting in front of a bay window (kind of like the picture below, except the desk was much wider – taking up nearly the entire width of the small room). The light streaming through the bay window gave the room a glow of healthy creativity. I looked around and saw books on bookshelves, which flanked the room.

Well, at least they are more organized now! I wonder who did that? As the thought flowed through my mind, the memory of journaling one morning came to me. I had outlined 12 books that would be in nine different categories. Ah, I had organized my thoughts and my creations that morning – without even realizing it!

With the extra courage I brought for this journey, I had not a hope to be able to summon the boldness to read the books on the shelves…their spines glimmering from the gold letters etched in the leather. Deficient of this, I walked to the writing table where I saw many writing instruments. A ballpoint pen. A sharpened feather with ink well. A calligrapher’s set. A leather writing pad covered nearly the entire surface. I looked out the window, perhaps to escape the invitation, and saw wooded acreage stretched as far as I could see.

Where am I? I wondered.

Again, the answer, “In your heart.”

Why has my heart brought me here?

“To write.”

That seemed obvious, but had I made the conscious choice to do so? It didn’t seem like it. I certainly wasn’t acting like it. I had not even cracked my journal for weeks prior to this. And, though, I liked the idea of writing, I didn’t want to sit and actually do the writing. And, while I was curious which books lined the shelves, I certainly did not have the fortitude to go and read the creative works that my heart held.

Instead, I took a gift. The knowing that whatever we hold in our heart is ours to create – ours to choose to create. When, again our choice.

I drifted off to sleep without writing nor sneaking a peek of what was to come.

So many months later, I am back in my heart. This time to write… and ready to create it.

What’s in your heart? Do you dare to sneak a peek?

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Last Thursday, on Queen of Dreams Radio, Violette and I talked about following your bliss. Specifically, we talked about how much ENERGY there is when you follow your bliss, and how much JOY you can experience when you follow your bliss, regardless of whether you even know where your bliss is guiding you!

I have to say, it is a tremendously free feeling to let go and follow my bliss. For me, that has been to follow my writing into fiction land and writing for children. Of course, I still write for adults, though this other path has a feeling of supreme expectation!

I am not a ‘joiner’ of things by nature, but when I received my membership materials for the Society of Children’s Book Writers & Illustrators last week, I felt higher than the moon! My heart literally swooned. Something about this path is SO right. And, who knows where it is taking me?

What’s more is I don’t even have to know anything else. Not where I am going. Not what’s going to happen. Not why I’m doing it. NOTHING. The feeling alone is enough to propel me along this yellow brick road.

I would love for each of you to feel this too! Listen to your nudgings and follow them!

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I wrote about following your dreams last week.

Today, I visited with some friends who form a circle of Wise Women. One exclaimed excitedly, “I found my heart people! I found my heart home!”

The energy, the exuberance radiating off of her was palpable. She also mentioned something about doors flying open and things taking off.

I love that feeling. Life is a journey of receiving and having the courage to walk through those open doors, I believe.

The image of open doors reminded me of Teesha Moore, an artist who expressed the same thing about open doors when she gave in to her heart and created Artfest, one of the grooviest art destination events in North America. She says:

“Artfest was a concept that consumed my every thought 13 years ago. It was right after I went through a period of asking the universe, “What am I here to do”. When the visions started unfolding, I was excited and scared a little. But I knew that until I set the wheels in motion, my thoughts would not leave me alone. So I stepped through the first door and 13 years later, all the rest of the doors have been flung wide open for me. It is one way of knowing I am on the right path.”

Teesha’s life story is full of open doors – both for her art and also for Artfest.

I believe the heart has all of your answers…it is connected to the One Heart that connects us all. I see so many people (myself included over the years) that have chased the mind down one dead end after another. Sure, you get a consolation prize of the experience, but wouldn’t we rather be living? Really?

When you are ready… just ask for the next step. Then get ready for the doors to fly open.

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What’s your heart saying to you? You know, the whisper in your heart…what’s singing to you? What’s calling you to you?

Wednesday morning as I worked on a client project, a guitar came to my mind. I thought of the guitar and immediately emailed a client to ask about guitar lessons (as I can’t remember how to play anymore). What’s a guitar without knowing how to play?

I also asked about vocal lessons. Last year, when I spoke at Indigo Nation, I felt pulled to talk to a woman who worked as a vocal coach, but I didn’t follow through.

A few months later, the Messengers began singing during the sessions.

I found that if I relaxed, the sounds would move through me much like wind through a flute. If I became tense, it could be scary … sounding.

So, I went to see a friend for lunch… and then back for group coaching, where I got to talk with my friend… client… about the guitar. I told her I didn’t know what it was for…WHEN would I play it? I wondered.

That evening, I met with two new clients and bingo… guitars came up again. Apparently this new client LOVES guitars. I could feel a palpable electric energy moving through the conversation as we talked about his love of guitars.

I found myself wondering if I might be able to do this after all… he has more children and more business interests than I do. If he has time… why not me?

The next day, I worked away on another project, and in the other room (Mark’s office) I heard this very tinny, irritating  (to me) sound (Mark later said his speakers are not that great on his computer). It sounded like a thumping, grating sound… oooooooh. It turned out to be a video Mark watched on YouTube. A video called United Broke My Taylor Guitar. Coincidence… you decide.

I got the message. Loud and clear.

The following day (this past Friday), I woke up with this idea to play guitar and sing at our group coaching workshop (we meet once a month). I emailed my friend to bring her guitar…which she did, even though we didn’t sing and play, the intention was set.

Oh, and about a month ago, a movie from a year ago came to mind… The Guitar… an independent film about a woman following her heart. Wow.

What is your heart saying to you?

Ken Follett is a British author that many of you many have heard about if you regularly watch Oprah. His book, Pillars of the Earth, has broken all kinds of records, has mapped the world and nearly every country.

But it wasn’t always this way.

Ken began writing novels in his 20s. He wrote his first one because his car broke down and he needed the cash. As a journalist, he was used to writing fast, so completing a novel in short order was easy enough – and, he discovered, easy money too. Soon enough, he found himself churning out one suspense thriller after another at a nice clip of one a year, which, by the way, is what is expected from someone who is doing well in the world of writing – find something and do it forever, and whatever you do – don’t veer off the path paved with gold.

But his heart called him in another direction.

When Ken was in his mid 20s, his heart led him to begin reading a book written by someone else who was passionate about architecture – Nikolaus Pevsner. As he read, he could feel the passion Nikolaus wrote with about how buildings have life – look! Shortly after starting that book, Ken found himself on assignment in another city with a long wait for a train back. He says he’ll never forget what he did during that wait. Remembering the passion with which Nikolaus wrote about gothic architecture, Ken decided to take time as he waited to visit Peterborough Cathedral. He describes that visit as "one of those moments."

Soon, the passion, the energy, the story of these churches began to call to his heart. He would travel England, spending two days at a time with these beauties. He says most people take an afternoon, some take a day, but he prefers "two days." He began to outline a story about cathedrals. He sent it in to his publisher, and his publisher suggested that he unite his ‘tapestry’ with a series of melodramas.

But Ken knew he didn’t have this in him at the time. So, he put the book aside and decided to use his passionate energy for another book, The Eye of the Needle, which became his first bestseller.

Ken began to become enamored with medieval life, architecture, the story of the people who were poor, who did not know the mathematics required to build these giant architectural marvels. His heart yearned for more, but book after book left him void of the passion he sought. Before giving up, though, his heart connected him to another passionate heart – Jean Gimpel. Author of The Cathedral Builders. Soon, Ken’s mind, heart and imagination were alive in inspiration. Jean, it turned out, got tired of waiting for this book and wrote it himself.

Ken picked up that outline and few chapters he wrote years earlier and began writing. He also went to find Jean Gimpel, who inspired him a decade earlier, and found that the two lived on the same street.

When his heart called out to pick up the book he started 10 years earlier, to most people, Ken was at the pinnacle of success – at least financially. Why on earth would he ‘risk’ everything on a book that was way out of his league (literarily) and his market’s taste (thriller)? Who would do that?

Ken Follett did. He writes that it was the hardest book he ever wrote. He dedicated himself to it seven days a week for three and a half years. He felt it was special. A gift of sorts though his humble nature would not make it sound so grand.

When it was released, the publishers all sold the books they wanted to, and there was little fanfare. No awards, no outstanding sales. And Ken began to think that maybe he had been wrong about writing something ‘special.’

But then there was a German publisher who adored the book. Who had been dreaming of a novel written about cathedrals. Who had been asking other writer to write this book. Those of you who know Ken’s books know that Germany is probably not a big country for sales of his books since he writes about Nazis. However, this publisher promoted this book in a way that no others did.

Then something magical happened.

Soon, Ken’s heart would go out around the world to ignite other hearts in a passionate dance as the flame of Nikolaus’s heart ignited Ken’s originally with the passion, the verve of architecture and Jean’s passion for the people who built the cathedrals.

His little church book began to sell more and more and more books – more than his other best sellers – and finally did prove that he had indeed written something ‘special,’ something that touches the heart of others. Then, of course, we all know what happened… Oprah put it on her list, and well…

That is the gift of passion – the same passion that lives inside of you too.

What would you do today if you were fearless? What passion is calling to your heart?

Lesson’s from Ken’s Path

Passion begets success… even though he put Pillars of the Earth aside, his next novel written in that expansive, passionate energy became his FIRST bestseller

Your heart takes you where you need to go … your job is to listen. First, Nikolaus, then the train delay offered him the chance to go look at the cathedral – he could have said, no, I’ll sit here and read a book!

Your heart offers you traveling companions … books, authors, helpers, publishers who tell the truth, dreamers who have been dreaming of you, other passionate hearts

Believe in your passion, inspiration, your heart … so many times he was told this book was career suicide, well-intentioned friends urged him to ‘stick with what works,’ but he just couldn’t walk away from these people who spoke to his heart from centuries away

Love is a universal language … One heart knows the language of another heart…trust that language

Move over Harry Potter…I’m going to talk about a spell that most people know only too well. Yes, that is exactly what you think it is – the dreaded, the *eee* dare I say it, yes, the blogging distractus that takes one away from their ability to blog.

I have no idea why it happens nor how it happens. I only know that it happens.

Just the other day, I happened upon another blog site that offered this teensy view into the spell…

Let’s see here…It was the year 2002 – 78 posts. Then the next year – kind of bored – less than one per month. Ramping up to nearly seven times the posts the following year, and then KABOOM! huge momentum, and then back down to 38 then 12, then what…happened…to…2008 – apocalypse!

• ▼ 2009 (4)
• ► 2007 (12)
• ► 2006 (38)
• ► 2005 (163)
• ► 2004 (43)
• ► 2003 (7)
• ► 2002 (78)

There you have it…you are officially made aware of the blogging distractus spell, and there is never ever any need to ever feel that you are ‘behind’… ‘not doing enough’… just blog and enjoy the process!

I’ve promised you all that I will blog nearly every day…and I’m feeling the effects of the blogging distractus so I’ve had to switch to new subjects, new topics, new sharing…some of these may not be deep, but that’s the lighter side of life!

*Author’s Note* – I’ve been writing *professionally* since I was 11 (well, if you count my stint at the Junior High newspaper). Anyway, I’ve had plenty of articles printed in publications that cost people money to read, and I have never, ever been able to sustain any type of writing for any long period of time without feeling like my eyeballs would bounce out of my head! For a long time I felt really bad about that, but this year (as you all know it was the year of *REALLY* loving myself), I just decided to BE OVER IT and just write whatever comes to me, and enjoy the process, and hope that somewhere, someone will be served by what comes to my mind. You just never know when Serendipity will take someone over to your blog to take a looksee about how often you’ve blogged over the last 7 years!

Oh, and speaking of things I LOVED, ab-fab, LOVED to do… waiting tables. Yes, you read it FIRST here… LOVED, LOVED, LOVED hearing people’s stories, serving them, and seeing them come back again and again – it was like having lots of friends without having a lot of friend time required – friends at work – what could be better??? Plus, I like this color nail polish… too.

Watched American Idol last night and one of the things that stood out to me was the difference between the people who know who they are and those who are willing to trade in who they are to win. When you follow your heart, play the lead in the original play you are creating, and dare to break the rules, you’ll find that God takes you to places you couldn’t even imagine if you tried.

One of the main things we do to help people go to the next level is gain the courage to be who they really are, show up in a way that makes them stand out in the crowd, and have a whole lot more fun while they are doing it!

Dare to be you…