Last night was our 9th Anniversary Celebration at the store. It was awesome to see so many friends and clients and share a hug and a laugh. I really enjoyed myself… and also felt a stirring of something else.

Knowing that my next adventure is starting, in less than a month, was front and center. I could feel the excitement of that… But there was something else too. Perhaps a new awareness of something happening beyond “my plan”.

Many time throughout my life I have jumped into something for one reason, for something else to emerge. Whatever motivated me, was eclipsed by something more profound than I could have seen or imagined, before the experience began.

Just before Fito and I started dating, I had signed up for a year long program of workshops and retreats. My motivation was to help process and heal a previous relationship from a year or two before. I was so focused on figuring out why something went wrong or failed, that I couldn’t see that something new and even more significant was emerging. In fact I tried to sabotage and resist our relationship for the first 6 or 9 months. Simply because I was so focused on the past.

That series of workshops was absolutely perfect for me… but not for the reasons I had imagined. I may have achieved some of the healing I was looking for… but more importantly they were a catalyst for me to see and be different in what has become the most important relationship (for me) of this lifetime.

I am not sure we would be approaching our 12th Anniversary this year if I had not done this series of workshops and retreats. Those experiences helped me to recognize what was right in front of me and everything I was doing to push it away.

Last night I was aware that I am committing to three months of Spanish Immersion in Mexico for one reason… but that there is probably so much more that I can’t see or imagine yet. I feel the rightness of it, but also that there is a mystery that is unfolding too.

Someone asked me if I would be writing or posting on Facebook to keep people informed about what is going on… I realized in that moment that I don’t know the answer to that. I could see it both ways. San Miguel is beautiful. I could imagine writing and posting pictures everyday. At the same time, I could see how that might be a distraction from the immersion in another language and culture.

I know I don’t need to have an answer to this inquiry until I am there and in the experience. Yet it triggered this bigger awareness. I have no idea what this experience will be like. I can imagine and plan for some of the basics… but there are things at play that I can’t yet know.

As I reflect on this now, I realize how different I am going into this experience than I was when I opened Storm Wisdom 9 years ago… let alone back in 2004 when Fito and I first met. I am changed by being a part of a center that is focused on Intentional Living. I suppose in someways, the whole journey of these last 9 years has been about living in the mystery of life.

And as much as it has shifted and changed me… I realize it has done the same for so many others too. First and foremost the team that runs and supports the center… the Storm Wisdom family. To witness all of them last night during our time of celebration and appreciation, was to recognize how different we all are, all these years later. Even the newest among us… Mary Helen who has now been there for three years.

The impact of Storm Wisdom was apparent in the stories, laughter, and hugs that were being shared by our clients and friends too! So many who have been connected since the beginning and those who have found us recently… all, shifted and changed in their own ways.

All of us moving toward our next adventure.., whether we know it or not. Each having a more profound experience than we imagined for ourselves. Each choosing something for one reason, to have several others revealed.

This really is a magical time. And what a joy to realize we are all choosing to walk into the mystery.

With Light, Love, and Laughter
Charles