Butterfly Rocks

Today, I feel proud, both relaxed and in service too. That last part may sound strange since I don’t volunteer anywhere or take part in any organized religious activities, but it all makes sense as I sit on my new back porch with my cat curled up next to me, together on our purple blanket, taking in the whole of the day.

Some dreams are obvious in their naturally-gifted drive and intentions, while others can be quite curious, only revealing their golden center reasons once realized.

Specifically, I’m thinking and feeling about these sap-decorated rocks I’ve been making lately with a birch bark butterfly center. I gathered the sap while out in Buffalo, Wyoming, and the rocks I collected from just down the road at a little-known sandy spot by the side of a river. While holding a long-nosed lighter to the sap and helping the drippings and sweet bubbling goo take form, I had many intentions and reasons for drive pass through my mind. Brain aglow and consciously aware of all my blog and rock connections, I felt a bit of excitement, and perhaps also a little rush to get my work out there.

On another level, I felt doubt occasionally, sandwiched by the release of trust and allowing the artwork to lead the way. And still, as I rediscovered joy and humbleness through remembering over and over that nature and I take turns leading, tiny threads of financial questions came in, asking me, “Is this worth it?”, “Will this make a profit?”, and “Isn’t money the main reason why kids put up lemonade stands in the first place?” Fending off these questions, I kept them at bay, but of course when the day comes to brave your goods into the marketplace, they have a tendency to all come back. Shark Tank stars insist upon it, and many businesses do too, but I was both lucky and perfectly aligned this morning to meet the owner of Heather’s Flower Shop in West Dover, VT. Some people are so genuine and open-hearted that all business tension and walls quickly subside as real human care takes over.

And that’s when the magic happens too.

As two open hearts, talking and flowing together in her shop, we both started to reveal what nature really means. Yes, I do indeed feel accomplished now as I check off “sell rocks in a local store” from my dream list, but beyond that, on a more spiritual level, I feel fulfilled. I couldn’t have planned for Heather to feel so comfortable with me that she’d reveal how she used to pop sap bubbles on trees when she was a kid and make her mom mad when she got some stuck in her hair. I couldn’t have planned either how easily I would answer her questions about my artistic methods, extracting the most important parts, like how I usually listen to Dianna Lopez’s electric guitar frequencies when melting the sap and Clara Sophia’s angelic vocals while carefully clipping out the birch bark wings. Suddenly, the words promised on my business card made perfect sense:

Harness the power of nature and reawaken your intuitive connection.

We inspire each other, not by being something or someone, but by being ourselves——that is, as close to nature and our cleansed and healed hearts as possible. We become green again, as unbounded as Dianna’s reverberating tones and as innocently free as summertime sap in hair.

I let these golden reasons take over my mind as I drove the winding road home, until the thinking gave way to feeling and all the magic grew from beautiful thoughts to an embodied way of living. From this place, I took myself back to the little-known sandy beach by the side of the river, and for the rest of the afternoon I stayed, doing absolutely nothing but swimming in the deep, slowed-current pool and laying out under the sun.