Coming Home

I am watching the sunrise over Summer Lake, which is located in the far western edge of Oregon’s Great Basin. The crescent moon rests over the horizon as the pink sky reflects over this desert lake.

Everything just feels right.

I am in a cabin at PLAYA where hundreds of artists and scientists have stayed before me. I am wondering–how did they use this space, what work did they create from this inspired place, what their thoughts were like? The guest book is filled with poems, drawings and inspirations.

Person from the future, you are exactly where you need to be. – Guest from 2015

There is no wifi and no distractions. Out of habit, I keep picking up my phone, but there’s nothing to do on there! When you don’t have a phone, time just seems to open up.

All there is, is the vastness of landscape- the mix of the desert lake, mountains, pockets of water throughout the region, and all the wildlife who are lucky to call this place home.

It’s so quiet I can hear my thoughts so clearly. This is a place where you can notice the details of life and the details of ourselves.

I sit. I think. I write.

What is it like when it’s just you and your thoughts?

You may be like me where you’ve experience life as busy, crazy, uncertain, upsetting, depressing and just too much. I get into those spaces and completely feel overwhelmed with it all.

When we take physical (or mental) retreats from our daily lives, we get to see ourselves in a new light.

In this moment, I am so far away from all those complaints. In this moment, I am grateful to connect with the heartfelt, soulful part of myself where I am present to all of the gifts in my life.

I see things so clearly now.

✨ All those times I feel overwhelmed?
It’s because I am passionate about what I am doing and want to make a difference.

✨ All those times I am sad?
It’s because my heart is guiding me in the right direction.

✨ All those times I am afraid?

It’s because I get to learn to let go of control of certainty and ride the wave of life.

When I am in hustle, struggle, attachment or anxiety, I am distracted from the beautiful moments right in front of me. Sometimes I am so busy doing the next thing I neglect to see everything I’ve been wanting is right in front of me.

“Out here, there is another way to be”- Ursula K. Le Guin
Here at Summer Lake, I feel connected to something much greater than myself: the artists and scientists who were here before me, the native people who lived here 12,000 years ago, the sun, the water, the land, the stars, and the energy that runs through us all.

I am as vast as the sky before me and and as deep as the ground below me. All there to do is enjoy these precious moments and allow my heart to open to my inherent sense of peace, joy, and aliveness.

Do good work here. Drink coffee. Go outside. Recharge and refresh. Bring some of it back to the wider world but keep some of it for yourself. – Guest from 2018

This feeling will follow me back home, as I am always coming home wherever I am.

Before I depart, I bask in the colors of the sunrise and enjoy the light reflecting on the water. It’s a beautiful reflection.

What do they do,
The singers, the tale-writers, dancers, painters, shapers, makers?
They go there with empty hands, into the gap between.
They come back with things in their hands.
They go silent and come back with words, with tunes.
They go into confusion and come back with patterns.
They go liming and weeping, ugly and frightened,
And come back with the wings of the red-wing hawk,
The eyes of the mountain lion.

That is where they live
Where they get their breath
There in the gap between, the empty place

-Ursula K. Le Guin from “Artists” in Always Coming Home

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