The Perfect Mirror
It was one of those days. I couldn’t decide what I wanted to do. The weather was like that, too. It rained overnight and was supposed to rain more but then radar showed showers staying west of us. Rain? No rain? Walk? Fly fish? Yoga? I felt antsy and unsettled after putting out mulch early this morning.
Yoga finally happened mid-day and it was a nice practice. So…fishing? All day long I wanted to go but was not sure where I wanted to go and if I wanted to use waders or wet wade? After getting irritated with my indecision, I got my gear together, put on shorts to wear under waders and headed to my favorite creek.
The humidity was very high from the overnight rain and it was quite warm. Since the water is cold, there was a beautiful fog hovering over the surface of the water. Walking into the water was like putting on a mantle of mist and entering another realm.
The fish were there and very smart and I wished more than once I was just wading in the creek without the rod, reel and vest. I found myself aggravated but couldn’t really blame the fish since I’d felt that way all day. I felt frustrated that I wasn’t able to do anything but scare the fish (I actually had a trout zoom out from underneath my boot as I was wading).
The beauty kept pulling me back to myself and out of my head. But my mind kept chattering. I was doing something I love with such passion and it felt as if I was failing miserably because I wasn’t catching fish. Finally, I interrupted the negative thoughts as I sensed a familiar story being mirrored to me. It felt just like the frustration of doing the work I feel called to do and am so passionate about and it not producing a livable income. This has been an issue now for many years and one that grows more troublesome and worrying.
I’ve been working parttime at a university vaccination clinic and it’s been nice to have a little income to slow the drain on my savings, but the clinic is closing and that is creating an inner disturbance. You see, for many years now I’ve made very little money as I have given myself totally to documenting and sharing beauty and being a voice for our planet. I’ve loved it and feel lucky to have the opportunity to photograph amazing creatures underwater and visit sacred places that have fueled my passion for healing. I’ve published several books with my photography and writing including three children’s books. Yet, with so much effort and money spent to create these works, there has not been a supportive income produced by them. I’m not whining but rather expressing a deep frustration and grief that the work of my soul, the endeavors of my heart are not paying the bills.
If I get a full-time job just to produce an income, I won’t have enough energy to do the work of my heart. I’ve tried. And quite honestly, I cannot do it. The passion is so strong within me to do the work I feel called to do…and have felt since childhood…it feels like self-betrayal if I don’t do it. I struggle to express the depth of love I feel for our planet and all life here and so want to help bring balance
All of this was going through my mind as I waded back down the creek with mist swirling around me, softening the harshness of my thoughts. I finished fishing after taking note of my improved casting and promptly getting the fly stuck in a tree. After getting it out of said tree, the fly wrapped around the tip of my rod and created a massive tangle. I put the reel end of the ten-foot rod on the creek bank and walked out into the water, pulled my magnifier down from the hat brim and took 15 to 20 minutes to untangle the line which included removing the fly and strike indicator and carefully working with the spider-web thin line. I felt the fishing was done after that exercise in patience. Plus, I’d been wading for over three hours and was ready to head back down the creek and trail.
So, the mists were swirling and my frustration was tempered by the absolute beauty bombarding me from every direction. I begin to realize that fly fishing was mirroring my life’s work perfectly. It came down to this thread of thought: I feel called to be in Nature and explore the energetic, spiritual, emotional and physical connection with it. Through photography and writing I share my experiences to encourage others to connect and heal and love our planet. But mostly I share these experiences because I cannot not share. I am a visual storyteller. Period. That is my calling.
I also am a yoga instructor, a Reiki practitioner and teacher, an intuitive, a women’s drum circle leader, a musician…I have all these skills that are centered around helping others heal and I haven’t found a way to put it all together to provide an income. So I am, and have been for many years, very frustrated.
Walking down the trail I allowed the emotions to arise, to come up from the depths and be acknowledged. The sound of rushing water helped them to flow. Foundational understanding resulted: I would fly fish if I never caught another fish because I love the clear water, trees, rocks, green moss and so it is with the work of my heart; I will continue to connect with Nature and open myself to It and learn from it and share what I learn even if nobody reads my stories or I never sell another book or photograph. So deep is the trust I have for my soul leading me true, I am willing to risk everything to follow the Path. It doesn’t conform to the way of the world, but I know it is the right direction.
Patience. Practice. Perseverance. These three qualities are needed to learn the art of fly fishing. They are also a reminder for my Path…I want so much to help in the healing of this world. My gift is to be a bridge between Nature and humanity and use my talents of photography, writing, teaching yoga and energy work and creating music to fulfill my goal. I will continue to persevere through practice and patience. And trust that doors will open so my work can blossom and be a light into a suffering world as well as support me financially.
Fly fishing—a perfect mirror for my Path, my Life.
UPDATE: the night after I wrote this blog post I had a most amazing dream and the next morning another profound lesson learned from a rock. Check out the follow-up post and the wisdom shared by a rock.
To support the work of my heart and soul you can purchase my books, order photographs, take private yoga classes with me, come for a Reiki session or just donate. I also do graphic design and book layout as well as editing. My self-publishing led to the creation of a workshop for those wanting more info on how to go from a completed manuscript to a finished book. I will work with individuals and groups wanting to self-publish. One of the ways I have given back is to partner with non-profits to support their work through my books by given a set amount to their organization and I’m happy to include this with mentoring in your publication journey.
The process of giving up television has given the gift of showing just how much it and other mindless past times have separated me from life, from a deeper connection with my Higher Self…the spiritual self…the soul. I have discovered, through this process, that I have used mindless television-watching—even though I didn’t watch that much—to numb myself from life. I used it as a way to cut myself off from a voice within that wanted to come out and sing, speak, play. I had no idea….but then I discovered it wasn’t only television….it was anything that put me on auto-pilot and that included books I had read many times before, favorite movies. As I tracked myself I became more aware of the distractions I used to keep my inner voice quiet.
So this morning the pouring rain and storms kept me off my bicycle. Couldn’t even do front porch yoga due to lightning. What to DO….what to DO!??! That voice within found a way to tap my mind and suggested I dedicate this day to listening and not distracting myself. Why not?
As I looked at the bottom of the search page it listed my search origin location as Chimney Rock, North Carolina. I had been there in the journey, no doubt, but at that particular moment my body and phone were sitting in my home in Magnolia Springs…Alabama.
Then one of the pages about Pegasus had a rainbow background…reminding me of the rainbow colors of myself as Pegasus. Oh, and let’s not forget the walk I did after lunch with my dog Buddy. As we went under a magnolia tree I saw a cicada shell and the freshly hatched insect known as a translucent cicada… with beautiful wings drying in the air. I had the exact same experience in the journey as my wings dried after ‘I’ hatched from the hard shell.
How would our lives change if we put the beautiful, sacred self as a priority and stopped trying to cut off its voice…with television, news, social media, mindless books, arguing about who’s right and who’s wrong? Just one morning of doing this resulted in amazing experiences and clarity and…quite honestly…a big dose of WOW!
One other bit of information came to me about Pegasus. He has always been in service to poets. I reflected back to my recent writing about 
Patrick Kavanagh, an Irish poet, wrote one of my most favorite poems, Pegasus. Perhaps this poem, more than anything, explains the meaning of seeing myself break free as Pegasus in the journey.