23 April 2013
A little bit of Iona on my desk
I believe it all started back in 2010 when I embarked on a year of Creative Dreaming. I'd been wanting to change my life for a while and really started to get serious that year...in the wake of my first Iona pilgrimage. I had set the dream in motion...
I began to surround myself with things that reminded me of the dream or caused me to soak in its essence. These are really powerful tools, let me tell you!
I would wear jewelry that I'd gotten in Scotland over the years, and yes, a little bit of tartan. I'd watch and read inspiring things, drink whisky and Scottish beer...okay, so I don't need an excuse to drink whisky and beer... ;)
Oh yeah, and I visited Scotland...that helped a lot...
I created an iTunes playlist that embodied my dream and would listen to it on the subway. This is not made up of all Celtic songs (okay, there are a few) but instead any piece of music that represented my journey as a whole...where I had been and where I hoped to travel next.
I put photos up all around my apt that represented who I am now and where I want to go...removing all old images that held me in the (negative) past.
As I got more serious, the dream became a more internal thing...I was less tourist, more real...if that makes any sense.
I also have Iona stones and sand on my office desk and on my coffee table at home. I have a lovely memory of dropping to my knees on the way to the ferry last April...scooping up some (damp) sand and quickly shoving it into a plastic bag before leaving the island. When I poured it into an emptied out serenity garden, back in New York a week later, it was still wet...so I took one last breath of Iona before it dried. Delicious.
After a little while I didn't even have to make the effort to put myself inside the dream any more because the dream began to come to me.
And now that the dream is actually happening, I find that I don't need these charms as much as I did before. Everything has broken wide open and my horizon feels endless.
Creating a life is an extraordinary thing.
XO
P.S. You can read more about how I have been pursuing my dream HERE on abcCreativity. I tried to arm myself with as many tools as possible.