Serendipity

Last year I read the Artist's Way by Julia Cameron. She introduced the concept of serendipity. Basically, this is the idea that when your energy is open, the universe will send you what is needed in your life. So maybe that isn't well stated, but I had always called that phenomenon the Spirit of God directing your way in life. I had never learned how to really tap into it to enlarge personal creativity though.

Being between semesters in my program, I had time to nurture my creativity. I spent a few hours a day engaged in exercises to unblock my creative energy. I wrote down lists of activities that would be healthful and reviving to my spirit/mind/body. The book required you to have an alone time "artist's date" once a week. It was upon deciding where to go for that date when I resolved to let the energy of the universe guide my activities. I opened the phone book right up to a coupon for a free massage. I had not been able to get back to the chiropractor for medical massage for several months and my back had been in a lot of pain. When I called, they were able to get me right in. This chiropractor was in Woodland, yet only a twenty minute drive from my home. Everything about that day felt magical. Even the people that I met that day seemed like characters from a book (being wonderfully eccentric).

The receptionist, uncannily similar to Emma Thompson in Harry Potter mesmerized me through her Coke-bottle glasses, and would not let me leave after I finished. She bubbled on about all of the wonderful sites in town. She told me about the lilac gardens down the road and insisted on writing down the address and directions. When I got there the garden had barely been closed down for the rest of the year because the lilacs were bloomed out. I was able to walk around the historic home and see the beautiful gardens kept up by the Hulda Klager Lilac Society… Yet, I would have to wait another year before seeing the garden in its full splendor. http://www.lilacgardens.com/ This year, when May came, I was ready to go! I grabbed my daughter and we braved the crowds of gardeners grabbing up their favorite varieties of lilacs that would only be available for a few short weeks.

That one visit to Woodland opened up a summer full of artist's dates. I visited the Mt. St. Helen's visitor's center, the Chief Lelooska Lodge, Founder Days, and discovered the active artistic pursuits in this town, a cultural jewel within this small and best kept secret in SW Washington!