You raise me up...

Floating through life, that's what my friend Tammy Davis and I are doing here. We're showing up and seeing what happens. Everything we thought we were going to be doing here has fallen apart, and the new keeps unfolding. The lessons, the epiphanies, the life-altering moments, everything is course correcting. We're learning to drop the oars and just float downstream. There's nothing else to do. Absolutely nothing.

I first met Tammy three months ago today in the alley beside Coffee 'n Cream in McKinney, Texas. I was working in my studio above a restaurant on the square called Spoons making aprons, purses, bags, wall hangings, and anything else that came to my mind and slipped out my fingers. I had no intention of ever going back into the health care world. I was an artist, not a healer. Not after working in a healing facility for 26 years or working with a shaman for almost two years, not after getting certified in Integrated Energy Therapy and doing a study on the effects of energy on the physical body. Nope. Wasn't going back into that field.

And then, about a week later I was "trapped" in the spa sitting in the front room having energy flow in and out of me in waves forming the infinity symbol. It amped me up so much that I had to grab the next person that came out of any treatment room and shoot the energy out my hands all over her. An hour later we both thought we needed a cigarette. It was that explosive, that powerful, and that life-altering. It was something I knew I had to do. It was something that shot into me and wasn't going to let me go. I began to feel other's energy fields whether they were near me or not. I was discovering a way to make love without another body present. I was having night time visitors that were not in their physical bodies telling me things that only they would know, and then I would discover how true it really was after going on with my life the following days.

That's how I spent my summer. And then I shut down my studio and worked in the health care facility with my daughter, Tammy, and others. That's when everything began to amp up even more until Tammy found herself being called to Santa Fe. Suddenly, I was on the road with her. I had felt my pull back to Colorado. However, after a "hunting" trip to Santa Fe, I jumped on Tammy's train. I had to go where she was heading. I had never been to Santa Fe before, never yearned for it before, but knew, just knew I had to go with her.

The night before I left I had dinner with someone from high school that I hadn't seen since graduation. He treated me like no man had ever treated me before. He raised the bar so high that no one I had ever experienced before could even come close to touching it.

What's interesting about these turn of events is that each man in my life has increased the development of who I'm necessary to be to be open to what's been coming my way here. He not only showed me what I deserve, but what I know I deserve. Before him, I didn't know a man could treat a woman like he did, and now I know I deserve nothing less.

In high school he liked me. I knew he liked me, but how could I trust that when I didn't even like me? It goes with that saying, "I wouldn't belong to a club that would have me." So, forty years later I not only like me, but I so enjoy being treated with the utmost consideration and respect. I was with a man for thirty-two years, and was never shown the amount of respect in that time by my husband than I was by this man in one night.

"You raise me up to more than I can be." I used to listen to Josh Groban sing those lyrics, and I was totally confused to how that could be. How could you possibly be raised to more than you can be? How could that happen? I don't know the answer to that, but what I do know is that I feel that I have been raised up to more than I can be. And, while living here in Santa Fe these past few days, I'm discovering over and over and over just how powerful a place that is.

magic in music

Last night was one of the most magical and beautiful nights of my life upstairs in my new studio I share with Karen Klassen, owner of Spoons and Spoons Garage.

Lights shining on my fabrics and beads.
My friend Sonja sitting in the orange wicker chair eating Rick's cheeseburger.
Piles of threads on the table.
Fabric scraps scattered along the floor like bread crumbs.
And Buzz Andrews singing in the background. With the window opened it was like having Buzz in the studio with me. My feet tapped on the hardwood while layering textures of fabric.

It was a Buzz Andrews night. Again.

And then tonight I got to hear him again, but this time I saw him. I talked with him. I hugged him. I laughed with him. Not only is he a great singer and musician, but he's an even more devoted husband. There's nothing sexier than a man talking so wonderfully about his wife. Thank you, Buzz, for being my driftwood. You make me believe there is a continent full of amazing men.