There are times when my mind makes itself a fortress to inspiration. I have been learning more deeply the ways our minds color our reality. When at peace, the world becomes a cosmic symphony — I am swept away with the wind, I move with the tides, and everything shines.

I think the greatest luxury I have allowed myself in the last two years is the space to feel. I’m no longer chasing goals and dreams, but rather feelings and states of being. So I have been keeping a kind of internal library of moments, an archive that acts as a true north for the soul. These moments teach me about my innate capacity to feel wonderfully and lovingly aligned, and the internal and external experiences that allow for that harmony. I wanted to share some of that archive with you.

A memory I always carry with me

There was a garden I’d often walk to when I lived in New Hampshire. I went to the garden on a beautiful spring day and found myself enraptured — the trees and the garden became a symphony of sensations, the wind played the trees like instruments and the light made a perfect painting.

It was such an ordinary moment. I was alone, I was sitting, I was existing. Yet I continue to keep the memory close, like a bookmarked page that I can always turn back to easily, because it taught me so much — I felt extraordinary, like I was a witness to pure magic, or let in to a beautiful secret. I was learning the profound power of presence, of allowing my mind and being to be safely swept away by the currents of our world.

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I watched the Octopus Teacher and felt something beautiful

In all art, I am looking for something — devotion. I think art that comes from a place of devotion must be a means to know oneness, perhaps all work and acts of service we devote ourselves to. When creators share their discoveries, when they compress their knowledge and experience of oneness and share it with us, we are led through different points of entry made by different minds and souls into a single perfect idea — that we are one, all is one, and together we are bound and connected and lovingly operating within a harmonious dance. What we touch will be moved, what we love will expand, all that we are connected to is alchemized by our energy.

Sometimes for a stretch it feels like wisdom is evading me, that I can’t seem to get below the shallow waters of my mind. But every now and then I feel that all-knowing part of me, the God that lives with us, in all of us. Her voice calms me, and I know that voice is mine, that some deep part of me holds the wisdom of all life lived and witnessed. What my ancestors have learned, I carry with me, as the collective consciousness learns, so too am I. We cannot move through this life untouched, so may we be touched by it all.

A very lovely drive from a couple weeks ago

We were listening to Enya on the drive home from LA. I told Ara her music felt familiar, even though I never heard much of her music until then — it felt familiar on an embryonic level. This must have been what we heard in the womb, how the Universe Mother speaks as we live in hers.

How does the Universe speak?

I think that must be the question we all are asking, in some shape or form. And I think we need more stories, more art, more voices that reflect a Universe Mother, not just the cataclysmic, ambivalent, or masculine nature of Universe that we tend to buy into, that a history told through a certain gaze has led us to accept as our world.

There is a safe way to be soft, a powerful way to be soft.

In our empty hands we hold the world

This is a line from Ara’s song Kings.

We often speak about being empty as a state of numbness, but recently I’ve realized that being empty can be something else entirely — the ability to hold abundance.

Dahae Song is another artist I admire deeply, and she often speaks about being empty. She says, “For I always feel I hold so much, even when there is nothing in my hands.”

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And I see now that to empty myself, to be empty, is to become an open channel for all that can be witnessed. It is the opposite of numbness — it is the capacity to hold everything with lightness.

Joy moves in like mountains

A few weeks ago, we walked up a mountain in Joshua Tree and made friends with some desert squirrels who had found a home on a mountain peak.

I’ve learned that I can breathe more easily in the desert. I think if the time we spend amidst concrete and in cities collapse our energetic fields into contained spaces, then to be in the open desert is to allow our souls to expand infinitely. There is so much space to breathe, so much space to inhabit.

I felt like an orb growing brighter, I could breathe deeper, my thoughts could travel beyond the walls of my brain, of a room, of everyday structures and take flight. I could let things go before I could even remember they had appeared in my consciousness.

It is the most precious gift we can hold to be able to flow freely into the landscape.

The walk up the mountain was a pilgrimage. I could feel we were going to meet something. And I think in the end that something was just ourselves, our powerful, animal, pure selves who can feel awe and laugh freely and love with pounding hearts and expanding lungs.

On the way down we sat with the setting sun, feeling like giants with mountains for friends.

There are so many moments in life where we are given the opportunity to learn how to build this wondrous thing called peace. There was a time that the knowledge of how to live peacefully was given to us by our culture and ancestors, and these days many of us find ourselves wandering and lost as ancient customs and knowledge become distorted in the noise of our current civilization. But our guides are within, speaking through our senses, that knowing in our gut, the rise and fall of joy in our bodies. May we all find our place in this world where we are safe to find our peace. ✿

Happy New Year, my sweet friends. I am so grateful to have you on this journey with me. Tell me: what is your heart calling for in the New Year? Think about it. Write it down. Write it to me.

Your manifestations for a more beautiful life help to make this world more beautiful, too.

A Playlist for Rest 💙 May we find lots of it in 2022.

All my love,

Lucy

THE ART OF BEING

Tiny Stories of Inspiration ✨