To me, cairns are a comforting symbol that let us know that we’re on the right track, that we’ve come to the right place, and that whoever came before us wants to help guide us.

Yesterday, while hiking in the national forest near our home (in North Carolina), my mate and I found three cairns along a mountain stream. They weren’t marking a trail, but were placed, seemingly magically, along and even in the stream bed.

Three, as you know from fairy tales, is a magic number. It means that something is about to happen. Take three wishes, for example. The initiate is given three wishes and this determines their fate. In Jungian thought, threes symbolize transformation. So whenever I see three of something, or get three nudges from the universe that I need to go in another direction, I know something’s going on in a powerful way.

We have also created three cairns at our home, marking the path to our door. We want anyone who visits to know that they’ve come to the right place. The trail, at least for a little while, is this way. Beyond the third cairn, marks the beginning of hospitality. Peace to all who enter here, says the small symbol next to our door.

The stories that we create and share are like cairns. They are like markers we leave behind that show other people the shape that our journeys have taken. Stories, to me, whether they are fiction, nonfiction or somewhere in-between, are sacred beings. They are our way of communicating with our current tribe, our descendants and also our imagination, intuition and spirit, the collective around us.

So if given three wishes, one of them that I offer is this:

 May we all find our creative journey with ease and leave markers along the way for those who follow to make their journey a little easier.

And so it is.

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Since I think it’s fun to share photographs, I also put up a few small photo albums of my trip to Italy, my time living in Colorado and trips to various places in the southwest, a fan album and a book cover album. 
 

This photo is of me on a street in Florence, Italy. I’m on my way to rent a car to drive to Assisi for an overnight visit and from there I went to Siena for a few days and then to the coastal villages at Cinque Terre.
 

I had dreamed about going to Italy for years. I went there, in part, to do research for Seeking Sara Summers because some of the novel takes place in Italy. I love doing research that involves travel! The novel I’m working on now is set in the Georgia low country, near Savannah, which is a little closer to home. I feel a road trip coming on!
 

If you have a website, let me know the address so I can visit your site. And, like I said before, I’d love to hear what you think of my new design and content.

Onward and upward!

Susan

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A lynx crosses the finish area during the first training run for the men’s downhill race of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics in Whistler, B.C.

This has nothing to do with writing or creativity, except that I’ve been watching the Olympics every night on television and until I saw this photo, I hadn’t given a thought to the 4-legged spectators that may be watching, as well.

Are you watching the Olympics?

Creating a gratitude list can help return you to a sense of power and possibility. Please feel free to add the things you’re grateful at the comment section at the bottom of the post (or if you are an email subscriber, you can click on the name of the post and it will take you to the blog to comment).

1. my mate
2. my children
3. friends
4. meaningful work
5. laughter
6. community
7. mountain bluebirds
8. coffee shops
9. organic Assam tea
10. road maps
11. wildlife protection
12. trails
13. libraries
14. bookstores
15. artists
16. painters
17. wisdom
18. knowledge
19. potluck dinners
20. National Parks
21. prairie dogs and coyotes
22. good movies
23. elk
24. waterfalls
25. imagination
26. boldness
27. courage
28. people who read books
29. people who read my books
30. discipline
31. joy
32. poetry
33. encouragement
34. mountain ranges
35. good physical health
36. poets
37. dancers
38. integrity
39. sparrows
40. eagles
41. porch swings
42. honor
43. faith
44. resilience
45. kindness
46. authenticity
47. aspiring writers, artists, poets
48. cottonwood trees
49. sparrows
50. shade
51. oak trees
52. all trees
53. extended family
54. unconditional love
55. inspiration
56. strawberries
57. gardens
58. water hoses
59. Pentel mechanical pencils
60. streams
61. rivers
62. oceans
63. mother earth
64. adversity
65. inner work
66. good neighbors
67. surprising moments
68. Pentel pens
69. fresh baked bread
70. blueberries
71. raspberries
72. vegetables
73. art galleries
74. resiliency
75. rain forests
76. vacations
77. a really good joke
78. creativity
79. traveling
80. pets
81. teachers
82. mentors
83. really good books
84. children
85. literary agents
86. Wii sports
87. dreams
88. snow
89. snowshoes
90. snow shovels
91. running water
92. electricity
93. shelter
94. honest politicians
95. really good music
96. spiritual paths
97. sidewalks
98. word processing software
99. time to write
100. hope

What would be on your list?

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The photographer was sure that he was going to see the end of his dogs when the polar bear wandered in.

The Polar Bear returned every night that week to play with the dogs.

P.S. These images have been making the rounds. Thanks to Nadine Laman for sending them to me. See also the YouTube video below. Amazing footage.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Peace!

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If you can’t view the photographs go here.

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To comment click on the name of the post or the comment section below.

Reverence
by Julie Cadwallader-Staub

The air vibrated
with the sound of cicadas
on those hot Missouri nights after sundown
when the grown-ups gathered on the wide back lawn,
sank into their slung-back canvas chairs
tall glasses of iced tea beading in the heat

and we sisters chased fireflies
reaching for them in the dark
admiring their compact black bodies
their orange stripes and seeking antennas
as they crawled to our fingertips
and clicked open into the night air.

In all the days and years that have followed,
I don’t know that I’ve ever experienced
that same utter certainty of the goodness of life
that was as palpable
as the sound of the cicadas on those nights:

my sisters running around with me in the dark,
the murmur of the grown-ups’ voices,
the way reverence mixes with amazement
to see such a small body
emit so much light.
 
“Reverence” by Julie Cadwallader-Staub, from Friends Journal. ©Religious Society of Friends.

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The snow-capped Rocky Mountains surround me like ancient grandparents who want to tell me their stories and pass their wisdom on to me. There are no fresh words to describe this level of jaw-dropping beauty. Majestic, timeless, awesome, are overused. Yet every time I sit and witness this scene, I feel refreshed, renewed.

So if these mountains could talk, what would they say to artists today? Somehow, I imagine their lessons would be about authenticity. You cannot look at these mountains and not feel their “being”ness. They are solid, dependable and real.

I think artists are called upon to be authentic, too. We are called upon to be observers and witnesses to our surroundings and to report back to society through our writings, paintings, sculptures, poems, and more. And I truly believe that the more real and solid we are, the more effective and inspiring our work will be to others.

Perhaps these mountains would also teach us how to be unwavering in our belief of ourselves and encourage us to call upon all our strength to do the work that’s involved in fulfilling our purpose on this planet. Perhaps they would tell us to rest in the majestic, awesome, timelessness within, and connect to our own “being”ness.

Geologists tell us that this is the second set of mountains to form in this place. The peaks of the current Rockies, soaring up to 14,000 feet and higher, were created from the remains of the ancestral Rockies from millennia before. So, too, it seems that artists today stand on the shoulders of every artist who came before us. Not only the Michelangelo’s and Jane Austin’s, but those who did their art faithfully and honestly and were perhaps not remembered for it. Indeed, we all stand on the shoulders of giants.

So when I stand on the magnificent Rockies, I am reminded and re-inspired to do my work, sand grain by sand grain, my piece of moving humanity forward by being an artist. Make sure you do yours, as well.

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These photos come from Tom Sears, forwarded to me by a mutual friend, and are taken one year apart in northern New Hampshire. Evidently, for a black bear to have five healthy cubs is extraordinary. And for a single photographer to be able to capture these shots of animals living in the wild is equally amazing.

When  something as magical as this happens between man and animal, Native Americans say:
“We have walked  together in the shadow of a rainbow.”

A final thought. Here is a paragraph from a book I read recently, called
A Language Older Than Words
Derrick Jensen. I think it must be one of the most beautiful paragraphs I have ever read. See if you agree.

“As is true for most children, when I was young I heard the world speak. Stars sang. Stones had preferences. Trees had bad days. Toads held lively discussions, crowed over a good day’s catch. Like static on a radio, schooling and other forms of socialization began to interfere with my perception of the animate world, and for a number of years I almost believed that only humans spoke.”

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I never gave elk a thought until I moved to Colorado. Of course that’s probably because I had never crossed paths with an elk before coming here. But now I see them all the time, sometimes hundreds at a time.

To support my elk-a-holism, I have attended nature talks on elk behavior and been the recipient of all sorts of trivia facts about elk. For instance, did you know the antlers of a bull elk can hold up to ten bowling balls on each side? Of course it concerns me how experts know this.

In the service of my addiction, I have also been reprimanded by a park ranger when I got a little too close in my viewing practices. (My closest scrape with law enforcement so far.)

Not to mention that one of my fondest memories to date is of having to stop for an impromptu elk herd crossing while hiking.

Perhaps we all have things we could learn from the “wild” among us. In my more philosophical moments, I wonder if elk have entered my consciousness because they have something to teach me about how to be in the present moment. As far as I know, elk don’t dwell on the past or question themselves about their future. They don’t have an agenda to make money or strive for excellence. Nor do they worry about gas prices or the crisis on Wall Street or how the current election will turn out.  They simple are…elk.