Polaroids from Crater Lake

Jumpstart Creativity Tour

I cannot begin to tell you how excited I was when I heard Jess Greene of Seek Your Course planned on stopping in Boise for her Jumpstart Creativity Tour. So excited in fact I immediately marked it in my calendar and pledged to help sponsor her tour.

I am incredibly appreciative of the intention behind the journey she is taking and what she is doing across the country (and Canada) to awaken creativity in others. I believe it is such an important activity that it should be held sacred and fostered in everyone.

The mission from her site really says it all: "We believe that the creative community has the power to create change in the world"

Jess still has many events planned so check the site to see if your city is on the list. I hope you will take an hour to join her for mess making and artistic play when she stops in your area. 

I want to give a huge heartfelt thank you to Jess for sharing her creative knowledge and time with all of us. It truly was a pleasure meeting her and I cannot wait to see what else is in store for her.

The sweet smell of lavender

Instagrams from the Lakeside Lavender Festival in Nampa, Idaho.

Spreading Kindness

Cake image courtesy of birthday-clip-art.com

 Today is my birthday! This past year has been a beautiful and tremendous transformation for me. In the spirit of gratitude for all the gifts that have shown up in my life I want to pay it forward. One of the commitments I made to myself this year was to honor connection more. That means more phone calls and writing letters. I don't know about you but I feel like I am being swallowed sometimes by social media as it becomes more and more prominent in my life. So in an effort to connect with new friends and reconnect with old I want to spend more time truly communicating with others, not just on their Facebook walls. In celebration of my birthday this week I would like to send anyone who comments here a hand written postcard. If you would like to hear from me via snail mail please comment below AND email me your snail mail address to celwyss (at) gmail.com. I promise I will not use your information for anything other than to send you a postcard! I very much respect your privacy.

“And in the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years.”

                                                                                ~Abraham Lincoln

Moments like these

It is just before 5:30am and I wake to hear excited voices outside my bedroom door. Slowly as I become aware of my surroundings I start to wonder why exactly my housemates are up so early and why there is a need for such commotion at this hour. Then I swear I hear the words skinny dipping sung in an all too cheerful voice and think: "they better not be going without me."

I stepped out of my room to be greeted by faces bursting with excitement and laughter. I raise my hands up in the air and stare them down. Apparently this was happening at too-flippen-early o'clock.

Sometime in the night a plan was hatched for an early morning dip in the Pacific. I don't think any of us were awake enough to talk our way out of it or to clearly comprehend the fact that it was in fact already daylight outside.

Just like that we were throwing our clothes on a blanket and streaking towards the water.

Running with my tribe that morning was incredibly healing. It was the purest example of being present in the experience. I welled up with emotion as I ran towards that water because I recognized that in that very moment I was experiencing what living wild and free really meant. We were stripped down to our rawest and most vulnerable naked selves and able to laugh and run together. No judgements, no comparisons and no hesitations. A piece of that beach became a part of me in that moment, forever linked to my soul.

A small piece of that beach literally linked itself to me on the way out too. While still deep in my euphoric blissful experience I lost my footing and tripped, laying myself flat out on the sand and surf. Still totally buck naked and still completely in my blissful trance lying there with a mixture of tears and laughter erupting out of me. I will never forget the sight of my other very naked tribe sisters rushing over to help me up and exclaiming: "no man left behind!"

Moments like these are the ones that truly matter. They are the ones that stick with us forever. The moments that we will recall when we are old and wrinkled. Maybe, just maybe our tribe will still be creating these moments by then too. I'm counting on it.

Photos by Melissa Dowler of Long Haul Films.

Polaroids from Tribe 2012

and it goes like this...

Life is fleeting. We spend so much time trying to set ourselves up to live that much of that life isn't really lived at all. I think collectively as a species we are recognizing this. There are gentle reminders every day to just BE here.

I believe that all of us have a fundamental need for connection on some level. We seek it, we thrive in it and we hurt when it isn't found. Every single being on this planet needs a Tribe. I say this because I found mine or it found me last year when I was asked to be a part of something that just seemed really fun at the time. I said yes to an adventure without fully being aware of how much that moment would set a course chock full of extraordinary life moments. Moments so incredibly magical I will never be able to entirely express the enormity of them in words.

Meeting with my Tribe for the second time at the Oregon coast this year was a gift. One that will continue to lend itself to me in the years ahead. These women fill me up. They inspire me. They bring out the absolute best of me. Most of all they show up as their true selves wholeheartedly. That is the real key to connection right there.

The conversations were a mixture of silliness and deep introspective moments. Tears and laughter were equally spilled out into the room with the teal couch. Sand was caught between our toes and paint was flung across the room. Every single moment lies like a beautiful tattoo on my soul to be cherished forever.

I imagine I will have much more to share soon as I gently make my re-entry into life at home but for now I just want to marinate in the absolute beauty that happened last week and to say thank you. Thank you to Rebecca, Sarah, Meghan, Emily, Elizabeth, Sophia and Melissa for this week. I love you all!