Here’s how it goes: several years ago I was reading a book and came across an interview with Angeles Arrien where she talked about the four healing salves: singing, dancing, storytelling and silence. Her words resonated with me so much and inspired me to write a post about healing.

And, no surprise, this powerful quote stayed with me, taking up residence in my heart and soul.

Then, a few months ago, I noticed the quote making its way around the internet, showing up on websites and blogs.

But here’s the thing: the quote was attributed to Gabrielle Roth, not Angeles Arrien.

That really confused me, because I was so sure I knew who’d said it. So I did a bit of sleuthing, and mystery solved. Turns out Angeles Arrien wrote the preface for one of Gabrielle Roth’s books, and that’s how it got linked to her name.

For some reason I thought others would discover this too, so no big deal. But I kept seeing it and well, it worried me.

Strange, isn’t it, that something like this would worry me?

But I worried that the people using the quote didn’t know who said it and would want the information. I also worried for Angeles Arrien, thinking that she’d feel discouraged or frustrated. I even left a comment on someone’s blog letting them know the true origin of the words.

And almost as soon as I hit submit I realized that this was far beyond my control.

No way could I police the big, wide internet, acting as defender of Angeles Arrien’s words! Nor would I want to. And I’m pretty sure Angeles Arrien doesn’t need me to play that role in her life.

But that’s how we spin into worry, you know?

We lose sight of what we actually have control over. We forget how to relinquish the psuedo-control we think we have.

Often, when my clients are immersed in worry, I ask: What do you actually have control of here? 

This time, I had to ask myself the same question.

And here’s what I came up with: I could create an art journal page to honor the wise words of both women and share it with you here. And then I could put my worries aside and remember what truly matters.

So here you go, in her own words.

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One night, in the circle of women, I told the story of my grandmother’s hands.

working hands.

loving hands.

creative hands.

powerful hands.

Above all, the hands that were poised in patience: returning, repeating, redoing.

It was the patience part that I didn’t get for a long time. That’s what I told the circle of women.

Bereft of patience, my own hands got angry at the returning, repeating, redoing.

They wanted their freedom, to be released, to be done.

Until one cloudy afternoon (long after my grandmother was gone), in the midst of chopping vegetables, it was as if my grandmother’s hands gently covered my own.

Guiding them. Slowing them down. Teaching them patience.

Asking me to consider, simply consider, that the mysteries of the universe were hidden in the layers of an onion or the leaves of an artichoke.

Awakening me to the possibility that my hands held a kind of creative wisdom that my brain couldn’t quite fathom.

As I came to the end of my story I knew that every woman in the room had listened to me and loved me just as my grandmother had.

Every woman in the room, in fact, was a grandmother in that moment.

Each truly seeing and celebrating the grandmother power circling amongst us.

Each gladly initiating one another into the creative wisdom that flowed through our hands.

Each proudly carrying the legacy of her own grandmother’s hands.

And not caring that some of us were 30 or 46 or 62 or 39 or 57.

Not caring that some of us would never have children or be grandmothers in the literal sense of the word.

Recognizing and resting in the truth that grandmother power and wisdom was available to each of us. Right here. Right now.

Many thanks to Tara Sophia Mohr for creating the Grandmother Power Blogging Campaign. Please visit and read the heartfelt posts about grandmother power.

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Well, I’ve been over at the Art Therapy & Happiness Project discovering Chunky Books of Courage. There, I’ve been invited to peel back the layers of courage and explore what’s underneath by making my own chunky little book.

The books are made up of mixed media pages and each page often includes an inspirational quote.

My experience with this project was particularly meaningful because I created each page with someone else in mind. Someone in need a shot of courage to see her through a challenging time.

And my heart was full when I wrapped it up and gifted this small token of support.

The book starts with HOPE, because for me courage is intricately linked to hope.

Then, of course, there’s the page about COURAGE itself.

Followed by PATIENCE, always a key ingredient of courage for me.

And I can’t forget EXPLORATION. Courage requires a willingness to put our toe in the water and explore.

Which, when you think of it, is related to ACTION.

The kind of action that’s pushed forward by CREATIVITY & INSPIRATION.

So there you have it: One chunky book of HOPE & COURAGE.

One simple hour spent Living Deep, delving into my own courage and then shipping it out to another.

What about you? When you peel back your layers of courage, what’s underneath? I’d love to hear.

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The mother walking in my neighborhood with her very young daughter.

The driver in the car next to me, waiting for the light to change.

The friends grabbing a quick lunch in the restaurant.

The father leaving the zoo with his two tween sons.

The clients in the waiting room at my office.

The runner zooming by on the park path.

Perhaps you’re curious about why they were looking down.

Well, cradled in each one’s hand was a small piece of technology that pretty much had all of their attention. At least for those few moments.

I tell you this not from a place of judgment but rather from a place of observing and wondering, because I too spend far more time looking down than I used to.

And it makes me wonder what we’re missing.

The grins on our children’s faces? The particular slant of the sun coming through the window? The love in our friend’s eyes? The bursts of color all around us? A tiny sliver of moon through the branches of an old oak tree?

Seems like what we’re missing most is the feeling of deep aliveness that comes when we’re present in those precious moments. But the weird thing is, most of the time we don’t even know we’re missing anything.

So maybe it’s time to look up more often. Will you join me?

I mean, they’re so wonderfully confusing aren’t they? The tug. The deep yearning. The promise. The daunting truth that sometimes it feels like you’re tracking a wily stranger who’s an expert at disappearing around every corner.

Some people, I’ve noticed, receive very clear callings and are propelled to go toward them with deliberate clarity.

For others (like me and most of my clients), callings appear as vague hunches and notions. Following them means pulling the thread of curiosity, letting it unravel and trusting the direction it takes you.

Still, there are those callings that seem so maddeningly elusive you wind up feeling frustrated and ultimately stuck.

Not only have you lost the road map, you’re stranded in a deserted town and your cell phone is dead.

At that point, the best thing you can do is stop, look within, and allow yourself to love what needs to be loved right now. Here are some possibilities:

Love your heart’s need to mend and restore.

The urge to follow a call often comes on the heels of a loss of some kind: a relationship, a life role or structure, a job, a sense of self-identity, a dear one. Recognize your heart’s need to heal and give yourself permission to retreat and recuperate, whatever that looks like for you.

Love your body’s need for attention.

When you feel stuck in a callings quest you might also be stuck in analysis-paralysis, continually searching for more information and replaying the same questions over and over. So get out of your head and into your body. Move. Dance. Stretch. Hug. Jump.

Love your inner seeker’s need for freedom and space.

To be called means to yearn, and to yearn always activates your inner seeker. More than anything, that inner seeker wants to roam, get lost, explore. Now is a good time to haunt the back roads, stand at the apex of a broad vista or walk along a wide expanse of beach.

Love your senses (seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, tasting) and their need to come alive.

To be called also means the desire to attach to something, to feel fully alive. It starts with your senses. In the midst of a callings quest you may not understand why you can’t get enough of the scent of lavender or why touching a certain something brings you close to tears. You don’t need to understand it, though. You just need to turn towards it.

Love your creativity’s need to cut loose.

You’re obsessed by the thought of going out to the garage and painting big canvases with huge blocks of color. And you’re not sure it has anything to do with your calling. That’s okay. Let yourself love your creative obsession, whatever it is. You’ve probably heard this before: anything that opens the conduit to your creative self is good for unsticking callings.

Love your emerging roles and their need for your embrace.

I’ve noticed that the urge to follow a call can show up on top of another call that’s been activated and followed, like the call to get married, have a child, make a significant move to a different city/state/country, retire from a career, become a homeowner. Once you’ve experienced the full-on aliveness of following such a call you may crave more. And while it seems like two calls are better than one, it can be confusing. Often the wisest course of action is to revisit the initial call, especially when it involves a role change. This is a good time to love up that new role a little bit more, then see what happens.

In every single one of these situations, the key is allowing and letting yourself love.

Too often we turn our backs on what needs to be loved within us because we’re convinced it won’t get us where we need to go. And as I come to the end of writing this, I realize that whether or not you’re feeling stuck in the mud around an elusive calling, this is a good question to ask any old time:

What do I need to love today?

I’m heading out on vacation tomorrow, intent on loving what needs to be loved. Comments are closed but I look forward to reconnecting in a couple of weeks.

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The garden is a meditation practice…In the garden one can see the time coming for both fruition and for dying back. In the garden one is moving with rather than against the inhalations and exhalations of greater wild Nature.

Through this meditation we acknowledge that the Life/Death/Life cycle is a natural one. Both live-giving and death-dealing natures are waiting to be befriended, forever loved. In this process, we become like the cyclical wild. We have the ability to infuse energy and strengthen life, and to stand out of the way of what dies.

-Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Women Who Run With the Wolves

What puts you in touch with greater wild Nature?

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Oh, maybe we don’t use the word lonely to describe what we’re feeling. Often that seems too risky, like we’re setting ourselves up to be judged by the dictionary definitions of it: companionless, desolate, bleak.

Instead we talk about the absence of (and yearning for) deep connection, belonging, community.

Bottom line: We’re lonely. I’m lonely sometimes. Many of my clients experience it. Maybe you do too?

It’s not too hard to understand why. We live in a weird connected-but-disconnected era that fosters loneliness in many people. (But not all, certainly.)

So lately I’ve been contemplating my own experiences of loneliness and have come to a surprising realization: I’m a lot less lonely than I was two years ago.

That sparked my curiosity. Why, I wondered, do I feel less lonely and more connected?

I decided to go back and shine a light on that, retracing my steps and unearthing some unexpected twists and turns on my own path through loneliness.

Here’s what I discovered. Here’s what’s different in my life now:

• Weekly-ish phone conversations with my friend/colleague/soul sister; I can’t even put into words how much they mean to me.
• Tending women’s creative wisdom circles: showing up, telling our stories, trusting the transformative power of relationship.
• Creating in real space/real time community and realizing that this is a nutrient for me, like vitamin C.
• Monthly book club gatherings. We began as strangers and turned into friends who break bread together and read a lot.
• Monthly lunches with my brother. I reached out to him after we lost a family member; now, our once-distant relationship has blossomed and you can’t get us to stop talking.
• More people who have refrigerator rights in my life (read about why this is important here).
• Turning toward the truth that my work can be isolating; in doing so dropping into deep gratitude for the unique relationships I get to create with clients.
• Learning that almost half of the brain’s cerebral cortex needs visual input and face time, and deciding to start feeding my hungry brain.
• Remembering what Virginia Satir said: We need 4 hugs a day for survival, 8 hugs a day for maintenance, 12 hugs a day for growth.
• Recognizing the transitional times in the day when I’m apt to feel lonely and using mindfulness practices to bridge the in-between spaces.
• Stepping away from blogging and the online world for 15 months; returning with a stronger sense of what is lonely making for me and what is true connection.

And that’s my story of loneliness.

I haven’t banished it from my life but I do have a clearer sense about where I’m going next. At the start of every year I revisit my values, the things that truly matter to me. In the past I’ve often used those words I mentioned earlier to describe my values: Connection. Belonging. Community.

This year I’m tired of those words and I’m ready to unearth the true need beneath them: time and friendship.

Simply put, I want more time with friends. Or maybe, more friends with time.

To hang out. Laugh. Talk. Go out. Create. Cook a meal together.

To look, really look, into each other’s eyes. To linger in a hug.

I’m feeling pretty good about that, considering the fortune I pulled out of a cookie not two minutes ago.

Now it’s your turn. What’s your experience of loneliness?

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I’m still on my self-proclaimed spring break, planting poppies and savoring strawberries. Making art and lingering at an outdoor cafe. Planning a weekend adventure at the beach.

In the midst of all this, it occurred to me that you might be wondering why I’m making such a big deal about spring.

I mean, it’s great and everything, but why all the fuss?

Well, for me, the arrival of spring holds deep psychological meaning and far-reaching symbolism.

It reminds me, like nothing else does, of the essential call of self renewal: Emptying out. Letting go. Making space for what’s new and blossoming.

You could even say that self renewal (the act of renewing yourself) is at the core of the work I do with clients.

Now, the coolest thing is that an under-the-radar piece I wrote well over three years ago–Ten Qualities of Self Renewing Adults–has suddenly become popular. In it I pay homage to Frederic Hudson, whose work on adult development and self renewal hooked me many years ago.

Back then I said his list of qualities required for continuing self renewal was a gem. It still is, and I hope you get a chance to read it, right here.

And on this glorious first day of spring, I wish for you a life well-lived and a continuous flow of self renewal.

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I came down with it a couple of weeks ago when this splendiferous weather arrived in Northern California. Where a few months ago I was content with my black and white winter garden, now I’m itching to get my fingers in the soil and bring color and growth back into my world.

Spring, and the cycle of renewal, never fail to amaze me.

How lucky we are to have the seasons to remind us each year of the continuing need to empty out and let go so we can make space for what’s new and blossoming.

This year I’ve decided to recognize this wonder by declaring myself on spring break.

Of course, it’s been a long time since I was in college and had a real spring break. Still, it’s not hard to call back my favorite spring break memory, that year I turned 19 and hit the road with my best friend Brenda, traveling from Tempe, AZ to San Mateo, CA.

Brenda spent a week with my family. I toured her up and down the Coast to all my favorite places, everywhere from the de Young museum in San Francisco down to the Santa Cruz boardwalk.

There was no one better to play tour guide to than Brenda, because she delighted in every new experience.

I even got to introduce her to her very first artichoke on that trip. I’m so glad I was there, watching her marvel over each succulent leaf.

Trust me, I’ve never taken an artichoke for granted since then.

And that’s how I want to be this spring, like Brenda, delighting in the gifts of spring and not taking anything for granted.

I mean, college students shouldn’t get all the fun. And even though I’ll still be working during the next few weeks, I see no reason why those of us who are no longer in college can’t follow the call of springtime.

Here’s what I’ll be doing:

• planting poppies and trailing germander, even though I’m not sure where to get germander
• strolling through different neighborhoods, noticing everything that’s in bloom
• hanging out at cafes and restaurants with outdoor seating
• eating lots of asparagus, strawberries, and of course, artichokes!
• making art and playing with new art processes via the Art Therapy & Happiness Project

How about you? If you could take a spring break, what would you be doing?

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She’s real. She’s present. She’s fun. She’s right here, right now.

Charlotte lives in Portland and wears quite a few hats: Writer. Author. Writing Teacher and Mentor. Writing Coach. Blogger who writes about everything from how to use semicolons to the intersection of creativity and spirituality.

Oh, and she knits too!

And now, she has a novel out: Emma Jean’s Bad Behavior

Charlotte and I had a grand time chatting about the book and the journey that both she and Emma Jean took to get here.

As our conversation unfolded we touched on many different topics:

• Embracing multipotentiality and a variety of creative processes
• Crossing thresholds and claiming/making space for new or expanded creative roles
• Allowing the muse free reign (within reason) even when she wants to create something that pushes boundaries and maybe even scares people a little
• The mystery and wonder of how our creative and intuitive powers can tap into what’s already there when we can’t yet see it or name it
• Dark nights of the soul and learning to live in the place between certainty and uncertainty
• The Quiet Knowing That’s Always Been Present: what it is, what gets in the way, and how we turn toward it

You’re going to love getting to know Charlotte and hearing her wise words. You can click below to listen now:

If you’d like to download an mp3 of our conversation, right-click on this link and save linked file as: PattyBechtoldCharlotteRainsDixon

Learn more about Charlotte right here and get to know Emma Jean right here.

Thanks for listening!

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