Lightning Strikes the Same Place

Dear friends, 

I’m happy to report that my official (unofficial) sabbatical year is over, I am thoroughly settled in my new home in Bosnia & Herzegovina, and new projects have emerged.

Taking a year off from writing was both scary and unsettling. I embraced each season’s solstice and equinox as the year rolled on, hopeful for clarity. Spring in Baltimore, summer in Astoria, Oregon, fall and winter in Sarajevo. Much change, much delight, much heartache. I gave myself a lot of time to be still, to listen, to look inward. It was hard and exhausting and I grew tired of self-help language in all its forms. But, something, somewhere reached down to the bone, touched my very core. It started with a lightning strike high in the mountains.

It’s easy to make friends with other foreigners abroad. We are all mostly in the same boat, strangers in a strange land. I ask a few new friends if they want to go hiking on my birthday. We drive up Bjelasnica mountain, to the village of Umoljani. The trail takes us past a few traditional highland huts, with women outside selling foraged herbal tea and homemade woolen caps and socks. We immediately ascend, passing a woman picking wild rose hips, and ogle the idyllic green farms far below in the valley. It’s a beautiful day and I’m exceptionally grateful for my body and the clean air. We climb up and up, above the treeline through swaths of bright red wild blueberry bushes. The air grows cold and we hear thunder in the distance. A light gray cloud is perched over the summit, where we are headed. It’s not raining and we see other hikers up there. We stop to look around for shelter and eventually decide to press on. Every few steps another clap of thunder sounds and we stop to look at each other, wide eyed, gathering our collective knowledge about storms. It’s not raining and the clouds seem far away, so we press on again. A turn to my friend on the left and in that moment thunder booms inside my skull and something grabs my left foot, hard. I fall to the ground, screaming and holding my foot. I look around, all of us had fallen to the ground except for one, who was running toward us and shouting, a look of complete panic on her face. We were struck by lightning, some on the feet, some on the arm. All of us were ok, fully charged with adrenaline, but ok.

After we made it off the mountain in a weird series of panicked decisions, we sat and ate platters of pita and drank large glasses of homemade elderflower juice. And I thanked God for my body. It never occurred to me to be afraid of death in that moment, but certainly something important happened up there. It felt like getting close to the sun in a way, you can’t do it, it will kill you. Touched by something powerful, I felt it in my spine.

Fall in Sarajevo, a time to harvest and a time to see. I sit around a table on a rainy morning with five other women. They’ve all agreed to work a program of creative recovery with me, using The Artist’s Way as our guide. It had been easy, grace-filled even, I put out the idea and they simply said yes, and we started. I marvel at my coffee and at life as we chat about creativity. The collective energy of this group has overpowered my physical body more than once this week, and now I feel it in my neck. It’s not pain exactly, but power, like being touched directly by a higher power. Some kind of sacredness, however, not my burden to bear. As the women chat, I surrender my soul to this energy and feel lightness, feel our cluster of souls being cradled in the hands of the creator. I see a glimpse of bright light beneath flesh, a moment of pure grace. 

It’s almost the end of winter now and my own creative journey is looking less defined by the written word and more in the shape of spiritual exploration. This might not come as a surprise to you, dear reader, since my writing has become more and more spiritually focused over the years. I am interested in learning to hold space for others, in the spirit of community. Of bringing focused acceptance and love to all that I do. Albeit vague, this appears to be the path I’m walking today.

While I am no longer an active member of the Yellow Arrow team, part of my big heartbreak this past year, I am still in love with the mission and people keeping the work going. If you don’t have time to sign up for a class, you can donate a class to someone else: https://www.yellowarrowpublishing.com/workshop-sign-up/donateworkshop

Make a general donation:
https://www.yellowarrowpublishing.com/donate

Or buy one of their many wonderful publications:
https://www.yellowarrowpublishing.com/store

Thank you for being with me this year and always.

Much love to each of you,
Gwen